ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani man shot dead his teenage niece because she was listening to loud music, police said Tuesday. Muhammad Gullistan, 30, found his niece alone at her home on Sunday in Chakwal, 56 miles southeast of Islamabad. "Muhammad Gullistan visited the house while her family was away," police officer Qaisar Abbas told Reuters. "He asked her to turn the music down but she refused and they had an argument. He shot her with a 33-bore pistol."
Women are murdered every day in Pakistan for perceived slights against conservative social traditions. The crimes are so common, they rarely rate more than a paragraph in newspapers. According to Pakistani law, a woman's next of kin can forgive her murderers. Since Pakistani women are often killed by their close relations, the loophole allows thousands of murderers to escape without punishment. In 2013, 869 cases of so-called "honor killings" were reported in the media, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The true figure is probably higher since many cases go unreported.
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