Pakistani Soldier, Anwar Din, was stoned to death for an alleged love affair with a local woman.
A Pakistani Soldier was stoned to death March 13 for falling in love with a local woman, Reuters reported.
The soldier Anwar Din, 27, met Intizar Bibi, 19, last year when he was assigned to a checkpost near her home in the Parachinar area of Kurram, in Northwestern Pakistan.
Din was then transferred to another post but had returned to visit Bibi. Newsweek Pakistan reported that the two met to exchange gifts, each accompanied by friends. Local citizens discovered them and accused them of trying to elope.
The friends and Bibi managed to escape, but Din was captured.
An eyewitness said, “Din was brought to a square near the Turi graveyard where people started throwing stones and later beat him with poles of wood,” according to Newsweek Pakistan.
His body was unrecognizable when delivered to a local hospital.
Stoning is an ancient form of capital punishment usually reserved for those who commit adultery. An elder who participated in the tribal council that decided Din’s fate said, “This stoning wasn’t according to Islam, but it was in accordance with our tribal code.”
Din was a Sunni Muslim and Bibi was a Shi‘ite. Parachinar is a predominantly a Shi’ite region.
The local tribal council ruled that Bibi is to be shot, but she has taken refuge in the nearby Dar-ul-Zahra religious school, according to Newsweek Pakistan.
Sentences administered by tribal councils are technically outside of the legal system but they are common in many parts of Pakistan, especially the rural regions along the Afghanistan border.
