Sana Cheema: Body of alleged 'honour killing' victim exhumed in Pakistan Reports claim the Italian woman of Pakistani origin was killed because she refused to wed the man the family had chosen for her.

Image: The remains of Sana Cheema have been exhumed in Pakistan

Police in Pakistan have exhumed the body of an Italian woman amid claims she was murdered in an "honour killing" for refusing an arranged marriage.

Sana Cheema, 25, who lived in Brescia, Italy, died while visiting relatives in Pakistan earlier this month.

Her family said she died because of "chronic ulcer and hypotension (low blood pressure)", according to police.

But reports in Italy this week claimed she may have been killed by her family for refusing to wed the man they had chosen for her.

Her friends and members of the Pakistani community in the northern Italian city said that she had wanted to marry a Pakistani-Italian man in Italy. Police say Ms Cheema's father, Ghulam Mustafa, wanted her to marry a relative in Pakistan.


Police in the eastern Pakistani city of Gujrat opened an investigation earlier this week.

Ms Cheema's father, brother and uncle are currently being held in custody for questioning but have not been charged, said Gujrat police officer Mudassar Sajjad.

"Now it depends on the post mortem report. If it determines the cause of death is due to murder, only then will police charge the suspects," he added.

Police said they have taken samples from the woman's stomach and sent them for forensic examination, adding that there were no apparent injury marks on her body.

Ms Cheema was born in Pakistan, but lived in the northern Italian city of Brescia for most of her life. The Italian news agency ANSA said she got the Italian citizenship in September.

After she died earlier this month, a campaign to find out the truth about her death went viral on social media. Police then started an investigation.

Human rights groups claim hundreds of women in Pakistan are killed by their relatives each year after allegedly bringing shame on their families in the deeply conservative Muslim country.

Under previous legislation the culprits - usually men - could escape punishment if pardoned by members of their own family.

A new law removes the power to forgive culprits in such cases, but critics say some loopholes still exist.