An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Thursday convicted a man for his involvement in an honour killing case of a couple who had eloped.
The man, Mehboob, after being declared guilty was handed two terms of life imprisonment and fined Rs0.5 million by admin Judge Sajjad Ahmad.
The prosecution said that Mehboob — who is the third convict in the case — was involved in the killing of Mohsin and Lubna, the couple who had eloped. The couple was murdered four years ago in 2014 on their way to the court.
A case was registered against Mehboob, Lubna's maternal uncle, and two other men in Muridke, Punjab by Mohsin's father .
The other two men nominated in the case, who were Lubna's cousins, were earlier handed death sentences by a court.
Scores of women in Pakistan are still being murdered by relatives for bringing shame on their family, more than a year since new laws came into force aimed at stemming the flow of 'honour killings'.
The legislation mandates life imprisonment for honour killings, but whether a murder can be defined as a crime of honour is left to the judge's discretion.
That means the culprits can simply claim another motive and still be pardoned, according to Dr Farzana Bari, a widely respected activist and head of the Gender Studies Department at Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University.
