The father and ex-husband of a victim allegedly killed on the orders of a local council are among nine people arrested in eastern Pakistan in connection with the young woman’s death.

Police said Sidra Bibi, 18, was killed allegedly on the orders of a local council of elders in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, after she married a man of her own choosing.

Her relatives buried her body and flattened the land to erase evidence of a grave, police official Aftab Hussain said Monday. The victim was suffocated using a pillow placed over her face, he added.

The arrests came after authorities exhumed the body and carried out an autopsy, which confirmed she had been tortured before being killed.

The case has drawn widespread condemnation in a country where killings with such motivations are still common.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said 405 women were killed in 2024 in such cases, compared with 226 in 2023.

“The actual number is believed to be higher due to underreporting,” said Sadia Bukhari, a member of the commission’s council.

According to Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO), an Islamabad-based independent organisation, more than 32,000 cases of gender-based violence were reported nationwide last year, including 547 similar murders.

Killings in which family members kill women for actions perceived as bringing shame to the family have increased in recent years.

Last week, police in southwestern Balochistan province arrested 13 suspects after a video shared online appeared to show a young couple being shot dead for marrying without their families’ approval.

Police confirmed the authenticity of the footage, which went viral, saying the killings happened in May near Balochistan’s capital, Quetta.

In January, police arrested a Pakistani man suspected of killing his US-born 15-year-old daughter for refusing to stop posting videos on TikTok, a platform with more than 54 million users in the country.

“These so-called honour killings reveal a deep-rooted mindset that views women as the property of men,” Bukhari said. “Most women in Pakistan face discrimination from childhood through adulthood.” (Al Jazeera, excluding headline)

• PHOTO: Human rights activists shout slogans during a protest in Quetta on July 26, 2025, against the alleged honour killing of a couple last month in Balochistan. On Monday, 9 were arrested in a separate honour killing in Rawalpindi. [Banaras Khan/AFP]