'Honor killing' alleged in Georgia

Pakistani immigrant is accused of strangling daughter who opposed her arranged marriage

By Dahleen Glanton and Antonio Olivo | Chicago Tribune correspondents
2:29 AM CDT, July 8, 2008

JONESBORO, Ga. — Twenty-five-year-old Sandeela Kanwal was not happy with the marriage her father had arranged for her. So after the ceremony was performed in Pakistan three months ago, she went to Georgia and her husband went to Chicago.

Early Sunday, after a heated argument with her father, police in Clayton County near Atlanta said, the Pakistani immigrant allegedly took a bungee cord, wrapped it around his daughter's neck and killed her.

Shortly after police arrived, officials said, Chaudhry Rashid, 54, had a seizure and was taken to the hospital. Hours later, he was released, transferred to jail and charged with murder.

The problem of "honor killings" and other domestic violence after failed arranged marriages is spreading as some culturally rigid Pakistani and Indian immigrants settle in different parts of the country, said Najma Adam, a sociology professor at Governors State University in suburban Chicago who co-wrote a 2007 study on the issue.

Such cultural unions serve as social contracts among South Asians and other communities, where a marriage agreement is more about families joining forces than about two people finding love—akin to the arranged marriages of European royalty, she said.

When the marriage breaks down, both families are dishonored—especially the bride's, she said.

Subsequently, "family members, parents, are the ones who end up either taking their life or further abusing them," Adam said.

In arranged marriages, "even if [the husband] is beating her and very abusive toward her, because of the very strong patriarchal underpinnings, she is the one who has committed the crime by leaving him or by wanting out of this relationship," Adam said.

Rashid made his first court appearance Monday, but Chief Magistrate Daphne Walker delayed the case until Tuesday because she said she did not feel comfortable conducting the proceedings without an interpreter for Rashid, who speaks Urdu and very little English.

Rashid was returned to jail and held without bond.

Officer Timothy Owens, a spokesman for the Clayton County Police Department, said Rashid owns a pizza restaurant in the area. The family lives in a two-story house in a middle-class neighborhood in Jonesboro, an Atlanta suburb.

Members of Rashid's family, several of whom were in court Monday, had obtained a lawyer for him. Attorney Tammi Long said the family had written a letter to Rashid in Urdu, saying she would represent him and that they supported him.

In accordance with Pakistani custom, Kanwal had traveled to Pakistan three months ago to marry a Chicago man, also of Pakistani descent. Owens, who said the investigation had been slowed because of the language barrier, said the name of the husband was not immediately known.

Owens said Kanwal returned to Jonesboro after the wedding and had not seen her husband since. The officer said Kanwal lived in her father's house along with other relatives, including Rashid's wife, who is not Kanwal's mother.

Kanwal and her father had not spoken in two months, Owens said, because of their disagreement about ending the marriage, which in Pakistani culture could have disgraced her family.

"There is a stigma in the wife wanting the divorce," said Owens.

Dahleen Glanton reported from Jonesboro and Antonio Olivo from Chicago.

dglanton@tribune.com

aolivo@tribune.com