July 12, 2008	Saturday	Rajab 8, 1429

NEW YORK, July 11: A Pakistani immigrant of Jonesboro, Georgia, who strangled his daughter because she wanted to end her arranged marriage did it because she “would disgrace the family”, a news report said on Friday, citing an arrest warrant.

According to Atlanta Journal Constitution, Chaudhry Rashid told police he was Muslim and that extra-marital affairs were against his religion. That’s why he killed her, the Clayton County arrest warrant says.

In court this week Rashid said: “I have done nothing wrong.”

The AJC newspaper noted honour killings were more common in Muslim countries, but had also been reported in Latin America and other regions.

The Clayton County case has put a spotlight not only on honour killings, but also on the tradition of arranged marriage still common among South Asian immigrants in the United States.

Sandeela Kanwal, 25, of Jonesboro argued with her father as they drove home from her job at Wal-Mart, according to the arrest warrant. He was angry about her extra-marital affairs and her desire for a divorce from a husband she didn’t love.

Kanwal had married Majid Latif in an arranged marriage in Punjab in 2002.

When Kanwal said she would not reconsider ending her six-year marriage and filed divorce papers this month Rashid became enraged.

He took a bungee cord that he had carried from the car into the house and strangled his daughter in her bedroom.