Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 4:32PM BST 29 Jun 2009
Relatives dressed in police
uniforms stormed the bridegroom's house in the district of Charsadda, in
"The assailants took the
bridegroom out while some of the attackers climbed the wall and entered the
house. They killed the bride, the mother and sister of the bridegroom,"
said Saleem Jan, a police official for the Charsadda district.
"They beat them first and
then shot them dead," he told AFP news agency.
The groom's father was also
killed, another police official told AFP.
Police said the bride, who was 18
or 19 years old, came from the deeply conservative Mardan district next to
Charsadda. She had run away and married her boyfriend, who was around 30, without
telling her parents.
"Both the girl and man
married some weeks ago," Misal Khan, the bridegroom's uncle, told
reporters at the scene.
Police said the main suspects
were two uncles and a cousin.
Human rights groups have strongly
condemned the practice of honour killings in
Amnesty International says many
killings are unreported and in almost all cases the perpetrators, who are often
close family members, go unpunished.
.