ISLAMABAD – Pakistani police on Thursday arrested the father, husband and brother of a woman who was tortured and hanged alongside her alleged boyfriend in a family courtyard, a local police official said.

Khalida Bibi, a married mother-of-three, and her alleged boyfriend, 21-year-old Mohammad Mukhtar, were murdered in a so-called honour killing in the village of Mian Channu, in eastern Punjab province, the police official Allah Ditta said.

The three arrested relatives confessed to killing Bibi and Mukhtar for having an affair, he said, adding that officers were still questioning the suspects.

Ditta said the bodies of the murdered couple had been transported to hospital for an autopsy.

Hundreds of women are murdered every year in Pakistan, often by their own relatives, for going against their families’ wishes in matters of love and marriage.

The latest case took place weeks after police arrested the father and ex-husband of a British woman Samia Shahid on suspicion of her murder. A police investigation has concluded that Shahid’s father stood guard while her ex-husband raped her, before the two men strangled her to death.