Pak girl opposing arranged marriage dies myteriously

Kendal, England: A British teenager who opposed her parents' plan for an arranged marriage and claimed to be the victim of domestic abuse likely died from strangulation or smothering, a pathologist told an inquest into her killing Tuesday.
Shafilea Ahmed vanished in September 2003 shortly after returning home from a family trip to Pakistan, where she was introduced to a suitor and subsequently hospitalised after drinking bleach.
In February 2004, the 17-year-old student's decomposed body was found in undergrowth near a river in Sedgwick, about 260 miles (420 kilometers) north-west of London.
Police conducted a murder investigation, but no one has been charged. An inquest - held in Britain to determine the cause of death when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes - was opened in March 2004. It was adjourned shortly afterwards to allow the police to investigate, but reopened Tuesday at County Hall in Kendal, near where the corpse was found.
Dr Alison Armour, the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem, ruled out death by natural causes, citing the way the body was concealed on the riverbank. There was no evidence of the body suffering trauma or fractures, she said.
''The most likely cause of death would be smothering or strangulation by ligature or manually,'' Armour said in response to a question from John Bassett, representing the police. ''Or an element of both.''
Poems discovered after Ahmed's disappearance spoke of the teen's conflict with her family and her fears she would be forced into an arranged marriage.
''Here is a girl who isn't conforming to what this family wants,'' Police Superintendent Geraint Jones told the inquest. ''The next step is to carry out a murder. That was the hypothesis we followed.''
Later he said: ''(The) issue is about shame and honor in the family and maybe pressure would be brought to bear within the family in that cultural environment.''
Ahmed's parents insist they had nothing to do with her death. Iftikhar Ahmed and his wife, Farzana, were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping before their daughter's body was discovered. Both were released without charge.