KARACHI (Reuters) - Pervez Chachar and his young wife live in the police headquarters in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Their crime? They fell in love and married without their families' permission.The newlyweds dare not venture out of the police station as they fear their families will hunt them down and kill them.
"I know they will kill her and I have to protect her," Chachar said of his wife's family who are enraged that the young woman chose to marry a man from a rival tribe.
In traditional rural society in Pakistan, getting married without permission is deemed such a serious slight to the "honour" of a family or a tribe that death is seen as fitting retribution.
Rights groups estimate 500 people, most of them women, are killed in the name of "honour" in Pakistan every year, with the majority of victims from poor, rural families often killed by their own relatives.
Shortly after Chachar married Humera Kambo a year ago, the couple fled to Karachi from their home in Sindh province. Humera, too afraid to talk to a reporter, has been abducted by her family and Chachar has been beaten by them.
Still defiant, they fear death if they stray too far from the cramped room next to the police canteen which they share with another young couple in the same position. They have been there for four months and they don't know when they can safely leave.
Under Pakistani customs still followed in much of the countryside, a man or woman can be declared an outcast for having sexual relations outside marriage, or choosing their own spouse.
Ahh, the muslim tribal system. Isn't it so loving. Two people find that they are in love and the muslim code of tribes says nope. You must marry who we say, or you die. Lovely people these muslims are.
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