A father and his son have been arrested in Faisalabad after police said they killed a man and dumped his body in what investigators are calling an “honour” crime. The case surfaced after a headless body was found on April 10 in Chak 127 JB, within the limits of Sahianwala Police Station, setting off a police investigation that eventually led to two suspects.
According to police, the victim was later identified as Javed Iqbal. Investigators say they used CCTV footage, geofencing and human intelligence to trace the case, and then arrested Muhammad Irshad and his son, Muhammad Arsalan. Police allege the two men confessed during interrogation and told officers they had killed Javed because he was insisting on marrying a girl from their family and had allegedly threatened to make her pictures public.
Police said the suspects lured Javed to Bahlolpur on April 4 on the pretext of a fishing trip. There, investigators allege, he was killed. His body was later dumped while the head was buried separately, according to the police account.
The case has landed in a country where so-called honour killings still remain a brutal and persistent reality. Rights monitors say hundreds of such cases continue to be recorded each year in Pakistan. Human rights data shows that at least 405 honour killings were recorded in 2024, with women making up most of the victims.
That broader backdrop matters. In many of these cases, the language of “honour” is used to dress up what is, plainly, murder. Human rights advocates in Pakistan have long argued that weak enforcement, social pressure, and family complicity help keep the cycle going even when arrests are made. Recent cases in different parts of the country have again pushed the issue into public debate, with campaigners warning that the official count almost certainly falls short of the real number.
For now, the Faisalabad case is moving through the criminal justice process, and the police version of events will still have to be tested in court. But the details already reported are grim enough: a missing man, a body found without a head, and a motive investigators say was rooted in family control and social shame. It is the kind of story Pakistan has heard too many times before.
