UK court investigates unsolved death of Muslim girl who refused arranged marriage
KENDAL, England: A coroner was due to reopen an inquest Tuesday into the unsolved killing of a British teenager who opposed her Pakistani parents' plans for an arranged marriage.
Shafilea Ahmed vanished in September 2003 shortly after returning home from a family trip to Pakistan where she was introduced to a suitor.
Poems discovered after her disappearance testified to an unhappy family life — and to Ahmed's fears that she would be trapped in an arranged marriage. While in Pakistan, the despairing 17-year-old student was hospitalized after drinking bleach.
In February 2004, the Muslim teenager's badly decomposing body was discovered in undergrowth near a river in Sedgwick, about 260 miles (420 kilometers) northwest of London. Police said she had been killed, and an inquest, which in Britain is held to determine the cause of death, was opened in March 2004. It was adjourned shortly afterward to allow police to mount an investigation.
Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping before their daughter's body was discovered, but were later released without charge. Several relatives from the north England town of Bradford were arrested on suspicion of interfering with the investigation, but were not charged either.