This has been in the Indian press for a few days but the Guardian picked it up last night.

So-called honour killings by families who believe their daughters have disgraced them are increasingly common in Pakistan. (and the UK. and the US. And Europe. And Australia and NZ) But the gunning down last week of a woman by her brother, a lawyer, in front of dozens of witnesses in a packed courtroom in the bustling city of Hyderabad marks an alarming new low.

The family of 22 year-old Raheela Sehto had already made their fury at her marriage to Zulfiqar Sehto – a love match struck without their permission – abundantly clear. They reacted by filing a claim with local police that their daughter had been kidnapped by her 30-year-old husband

Her uncle had tried to throttle her with a scarf at an earlier appearance at the high court in Hyderabad in July. The couple had petitioned the court for its protection and to try and have the kidnapping charges thrown out.

But Sehto, a university graduate working for the local electricity company, said they felt they had no reason to fear for their lives in court, even when in the earlier part of the morning he was sitting almost directly in front of his wife's eventual killer, Javed Iqbal Shaikh, her brother.

Shortly after the two judges had returned to their seats after a break, Shaikh, dressed in the black suit and tie of his profession, produced a gun he had smuggled into court, lunged at Raheela and shot her point-blank in the left side of the head.

"The lawyers, they don't like to be searched," said Amjad Shaikh, a police superintendent in Hyderabad, the main city in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh. "Security is a little bit of a problem there."

Apparently unrepentant, Shaikh gave interviews to journalists later,  "I did that in rage because she had dishonoured the family," he said to a Pakistani newspaper. Four other family members who accompanied him in court have also been charged over the killing.

"Everyone is very shocked by this because it happened in an educated family," said the police officer. "Normally, honour killings happen in the rural areas where people are not educated." Or are educated in Islam where a woman is always property of a man.

The superintendent added that the involvement of the Shaikhs was also unusual, saying they are known for being "peaceful". The Shaikhs of Sindh, originally migrants from neighbouring Punjab, tend to enjoy high levels of education, are traditionally involved in trade and are little connected with tribal custom.

According to the latest survey of violence against women by the Aurat Foundation, a rights group, there were 2,341 honour killings in 2011 in Pakistan – a 27% jump on the year before. The report also said there were more than 8,000 abductions and 3,461 rapes and gang rapes. But the figures were just "the tip of the iceberg", it warned, saying researchers relied on those cases that were reported in the media only.

Sehto struggled to speak as he described the loss of his young wife, whom he had known for almost his entire life, growing up in the small town of Behlani. "She was my neighbour and we went to each other's home since we were children," he said. "We began to fall in love more than 18 months ago, but they kept refusing my family's request to marry her."

Raheela agreed to elope with Sehto only after her father attempted to marry her off to a Shaikh from Punjab whom she did not know, he said. His family has now left Behlani, and he said he will never return. "All I want is justice, I want the court to convict Javed and his accomplices with the death penalty," he said.