14 arrested after Pakistani girl is burned alive for helping friend elope

Members of a tribal council accused of ordering the burning of the teenage girl

A teenage girl was kidnapped, drugged, put in a van and set alight in an alleged "honour killing" by a tribal council in a Pakistani village after helping a friend elope, police have said.
At least 13 elders in the village near the north-western city Abbottabad have been arrested over the death – along with the girl’s mother, who is said to have agreed to the sentence. The traditional jirga assembly of elders ordered the girl be put to death last week as punishment for helping a couple leave the village to marry. The jirga "took her to an abandoned place outside the village and made her unconscious by injecting her with some drugs", district police chief Saeed Wazir said.
According to police, the teenager, known only as Ambreen, was set alight in the van that was used to help her school friend flee the village to marry of her own free will. The couple appear to have escaped. Some media reports suggest the young woman was strangled by members of the jirga before she was burned. The arrested members of the jirga appeared in a local anti-terrorism court on Thursday on charges of murder and terrorism.
In many societies around the world, women and girls, including rape victims, are killed by their relatives for engaging in premarital sex, as this is seen as an affront to the family’s honour. According to district police officer Khurram Rasheed, the punishment in this case was devised to be so severe that no girl would dare run away from the village in future. The UN estimates around 5,000 women worldwide are the victims of these so-called honour killings each year. However, many cases go unreported.