Pakistan teen burned alive for refusing marriage proposal

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ISLAMABAD: A young Pakistani woman died on Wednesday after she was tortured and set alight in the country's conservative northeast for refusing a marriage proposal from the son of a former colleague, relatives and police said. Maria Sadaqat, 19, was attacked by a group of people on Monday in the village of Upper Dewal close to the summer hill resort of Murree, outside the capital Islamabad. "She was badly tortured and then burned alive. We brought her to hospital in Islamabad but she succumbed to her wounds today," Abdul Basit, Sadaqat's uncle, said outside a burns centre at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in the capital. Grieving relatives outside the centre wept and protested at the teenager's death as police moved her body to another hospital for a post-mortem. Basit said his niece had been attacked by the principal of the private school where she had formerly worked as a teacher, and by his accomplices after she refused a marriage proposal from his son. "He was divorced and twice her age, so she refused the proposal and left her job when they pursued her time and again... eventually they attacked her," Basit said. Police said Sadaqat gave a statement before her death naming the principal and four others as her attackers. "We have arrested at least one of the accused and a hunt is on for the rest," Mazhar Iqbal, the officer directing the murder investigation, told AFP. A doctor at the hospital said Sadaqat had succumbed to serious burns.