Couple fears death for getting married

A doctors couple, Amnat and Ghulam Mustafa are on the run, in fear of their lives, for falling in love and getting married.
Hundreds of women fall victim to so-called "honour killing" by male relatives every year in deeply conservative, in Sindh for marrying without their families' consent, thereby being deemed to have brought disgrace on their family.
Amnat fears she would meet that same fate if she returned to her home in Sindh.
"My brothers have threatened to kill me and my husband," 44-year-old Amnat told Reuters in a recent interview in Islamabad.
"There is no guarantee for my life if I go home," the visibly shaken woman said as her husband, Ghulam Mustafa, looked on.
"The main condition of my brothers is that I should get a divorce from my husband if I want to go home but I will never do that."
Amnat and Ghulam have been on the run since they married in August 2002 and have recently come to Islamabad to seek government help.
"We have come here to ask the government to do something for us because we are now physically, mentally and financially exhausted," the bespectacled Mustafa said.
The doctors' marriage enraged Amnat's relatives in their conservative home town of Moro where almost every marriage is arranged.
Mustafa said his wife's family had been harassing his family ever since. They kidnapped and tortured two of his women relatives for more than two weeks and attacked and wounded his nephew to avenge the marriage, he said.
"At least 35 of my relatives have left Moro in fear of their lives," he said.
"There is no change in the trend," said Kamila Hyat, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
"The government has been saying for long that it is doing something. But nothing actually has happened on the ground," she said.
Rights activists say few of those responsible for honour killings are brought to justice, with police often reluctant to intervene in a "family matter".
Those who are arrested are often freed after families reach settlements, usually brokered by tribal elders.
In Amnat's home province of Sindh, where such murders are known as Karo Kari (black man, black woman), rights groups say 398 people, including 243 women, were victims of honour killings in 2002. Mustafa said he did not want the government to provide protection just to them.
"We want them to lay hands on influential people and feudals who incite such crimes. There are many Amnats who are facing similar tragedies," he said.