Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Fifty people have been arrested in connection with this week's killing of a Christian couple who were beaten and pushed into a burning kiln in eastern Pakistan, a police official said Thursday.

Investigators believe the 50 were part of a mob that killed the couple Tuesday after the pair were accused of desecrating the Quran, said Bin Yameen, a police official in the Kasur District in Punjab province.

Police said the attack in the village of Kot Radha Kishan came after a local mullah declared the couple were guilty of blasphemy.

The mob allegedly marched to the couple's home, broke down their door, dragged them outside, beat them and threw them into the brick kiln where they both worked.

Police officials identified the woman as Shyman Bibi Urf Shamar, and her husband as Sajjad Nasir Zurjah Nazir Nasir. The village is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of Lahore, the capital of Punjab.

The province's government will pay the couple's family 5 million Pakistani rupees -- about $49,000 -- as compensation for their deaths, the province's chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, said in a news release.

The government also will give the family 10 acres of land, Sharif said.

Desecration of the Quran is punishable by death or life imprisonment under Pakistan's anti-blasphemy law.

Human rights groups have long urged the country to repeal the law, arguing that it has led to discrimination, persecution and murder.

Woman takes blasphemy law to Pakistan's highest court

<cite class="expCaption" id="cite111">Rage, grief after killing of Christian couple</cite>

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it sent a team to the village, and that the team "did not come across any evidence of desecration of the Holy Quran."

The commission said that the couple had three young children -- two sons and a daughter -- and also indicated that the slain woman was pregnant.

But a postmortem examination later revealed no evidence that she was pregnant, CNN affiliate GEO News reported.

Pakistan's anti-blasphemy law often is used to settle personal vendettas, rights groups say, and people accused of the committing the crime are frequently targeted by mob violence.

That, according to the HRCP, appeared to be the situation in Kot Radha Kishan, and that the incident stemmed with a dispute over money the kiln's owners said the couple owed them.

An accusation that the couple had desecrated the Quran "was spread to nearby villages and announcements (were) made through mosque loudspeakers," the HRCP said.

The mob that went to the kiln was estimated at around 500 people, the rights group said, citing local police.

The HRCP said its team learned that four policemen went to the kiln to demand that the couple be handed over for protection from the mob, but that the owners "instructed their employees not to hand the couple over and the policemen were also beaten up."

The kiln's owners were among those arrested, the rights group said, quoting police.

Pakistani newlyweds decapitated by bride's family in honor killing

CNN) -- A young newlywed couple in northeastern Pakistan died a horrible death at the hands of the bride's family in the latest honor killing in the nation, police in Pakistan said Saturday.

The couple, identified as Sajjad Ahmed, 26, and Muawia Bibi, 18, were married by a Pakistani court on June 18 against the wishes of the Bibi family, Punjab police official Mohammad Ahsanullah told CNN.

On Thursday, the bride's father and uncles lured the couple back to the village of Satrah in Punjab province, where Ahsanullah said the pair were tied up and then decapitated.

Despite the fact that there were no outside witnesses, family members turned themselves in to police and are now jailed in the Sialkot district of Punjab, Ahsanulluh said.

 

<cite class="expCaption">Outrage over honor killings in Pakistan</cite>

 

<cite class="expCaption">Human rights activist speaks on violence</cite>

 

<cite class="expCaption">Getting away with murder in Pakistan</cite>

 

<cite class="expCaption">Fighting honor killings in Muslim world</cite>

Such killings often originate from tribal traditions in Pakistan and usually happen in rural areas. Human rights activists said bystanders, including police, don't often interfere because the killings are considered to be family matters.

According to the United Nations, some 5,000 women are murdered by family members in honor killings every year.

However, women's advocacy groups believe the crime is underreported and that the actual death toll from this all too common crime is actually much higher.

In Pakistan, 869 women were victims of honor killings last year, according to the country's human rights commission.

Earlier in June, 18-year-old Saba Masqood was found left for dead inside of a sack in a canal in Pakistan, injured by gunfire. She accused her brother and father of shooting her because they didn't approve of her marriage to a neighbor. She survived, but many aren't so lucky.

Last month, the death of a pregnant Pakistani woman made headlines around the world.

Farzana Parveen, 25, was attacked with bricks by about 20 people, including members of her immediate family, police said. And her husband, Mohammad Iqbal, told CNN that he had killed his first wife six years ago so he could marry Parveen.

Ray, There will ALWAYS be small pockets of IGNORANT and ILLITERATE people who are controlled by socalled Religious Leaders.  Some deh right here on GNI.

Chief will be silent on this matter.

WHy would Chief comment...this is more tradition than religion

Let us get his comment.

All of dem deh in the PPP/C

Honor killings has nothing to do with Religion. in fact it happens more in The USA but no one highlights it because it is not MUSLIMS  who are doing it.

Where in the US do these things occur? Do not count gang violence as honor killings because they say they have been slighted by another gang. We are speaking of tribal custodians clothed in religion that is brutal in regions of the world where women are commodities.

MANURE

What do you call when a spouse kills their spouse because he/she has dishonored  a relationship they are in.

if his honor use this gun, would it be a honor killing? 

I call it what it is, idiotic careless jealous rage to be penalized to th e fullest. Check to see if that is an epidemic here. Even in Guyana where it is pandemic there is no component about protecting honor. The very use of honor here is obscene.

A jealous rage. Honor killing is practised primarily by muslim males. Most regard their women as less than human beings.