Sandeela Kanwal

Sandeela Kanwal was a Pakistani woman living in the Atlanta metropolitan area in Clayton County, Georgia, who was murdered by her father Chaudhry Rashid in an honor killing, on July6, 2008.

Background Kanwal, aged 25, worked at a Wal-Mart, and her father, Chaudhry Rashid, aged 54 and holding United States permanent residency, ran a pizza restaurant in East Point, Georgia. At the time Rashid was married to a woman who was not Kanwal's mother. Rashid's main languages were Punjabi and Urdu. Kanwal and her father lived in a house in Clayton County, near Jonesboro, with their respective spouses and family members.

Kanwal had wed her husband in Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan on March 14, 2002. In November 2005, Kanwal and her brother purchased the Clayton County house. The evening of her death, while the father was driving his daughter back to the house from a late shift at the Wal-Mart, the two had an argument.

Crime and punishment In the early hours of July 6, 2008, Kanwal's father strangled her with a bungee cord. Rashid burned the bungee cord and flushed the ashes down the toilet, leaving authorities without a murder weapon. Rashid experienced a seizure upon his arrest and was jailed after being hospitalized briefly.

Due to Rashid's lack of English fluency, he had a court-appointed translator. He also followed Islamic dietary laws while in the county jail.