Pakistani police exhume bodies of couple allegedly killed by their families

Pakistani police on Monday exhumed the bodies of a young couple believed to have murdered by their families in a so-called honour killing, an investigator said.

Zeeshan Siddiqui said Abdul Hadi, 25, already married with three children, and his 21-year-old cousin Hussaini Bibi ran away together a month ago and had yet to marry. The couple had settled in a rented house in the southern city of Karachi.

Their landlord informed the police after the couple went missing. The house had bloodstains and signs of murder.

Questioning of their relatives led police to a graveyard where the bodies were exhumed, said the officer, who suspected the two families colluded in the killing.

"Honour killings" are mostly carried out by relatives over the perceived damage to their honour when a girl decides to marry someone of her choosing or refuses to marry someone her family would pick.

The couple were from the Kohistan tribal district of northwest Pakistan. In 2012, four women and a girl were ordered to be killed by a tribal council in Kohistan after a cell phone video of them dancing and singing apparently in a wedding became public.