© ReutersMembers of a tribal council accused of ordering the burning death of a 16-year-old girl are shown to the media after they were arrested by police in Abbottabad, Pakistan
At least 13 elders in the village near the north-western city Abbottabad have been arrested over the death - along with the girl's mother, who is said to have agreed to the sentence.
The traditional jirga assembly of elders ordered the girl be put to death last week as punishment for helping a couple leave the village to marry.
The jirga "took her to an abandoned place outside the village and made her unconscious by injecting her with some drugs", district police chief Saeed Wazir said.
"Then they seated the girl in a van in which the couple had escaped. They tied her hands to the seats and then poured petrol on her and the vehicle.
"I hadn't seen such a barbaric attack in my whole life."
According to police, the teenager, known only as Ambreen, was set alight in the van that was used to help her school friend flee the village to marry of her own free will. The couple appear to have escaped.
Some media reports suggest the young woman was strangled by members of the jirga before she was burned.
© APPakistani police officers escort members of a local tribal council, who have been arrested for burning a girl alive, outside a court in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on Thursday
In many societies around the world, women and girls, including rape victims, are killed by their relatives for engaging in premarital sex, as this is seen as an affront to the family's honour.
According to district police officer Khurram Rasheed, the punishment in this case was devised to be so severe that no girl would dare run away from the village in future.
The UN estimates around 5,000 women worldwide are the victims of these so-called honour killings each year. However, many cases go unreported.
And a report by Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission said nearly 1,100 women and 88 men were killed in Pakistan last year for dishonouring their families.
Mr Rasheed told AFP police were able to trace the accused through mobile phone data.
"The accused confessed during the investigation that a few months back Saima, a schoolgirl from the same village and tribe, eloped with her boyfriend and Ambreen facilitated their frequent meetings and later their elopement," he said.
If the village council were trying to set an example that would dissuade others from leaving the village, then the burning alive of the village council and the mother should dissuade other councils and parents from these acts.