Sindh province in Pakistan has been the hotbed of religious persecution, especially for those belonging to minority Hindu, Christian and Sikh communities. In recent years, there has been a wave of incidents where minor girls have been abducted and forcefully converted to Islam. In the most recent case, a 14-year-old Hindu girl was forcefully married to a Muslim man after converting to Islam, reports Firstpost.
#Pakistan 14-year-old #Hindu girl kidnapped, converted to Islam, forcibly married 2 abductor
— Mirza (@Mirza45994191) October 17, 2022
Family of the minor girl said their teenage daughter was recently abducted from Islamkot Tharparkar Sindh Village and converted to Islam by Samaru Pir Jan Sirhandi. pic.twitter.com/cvZUbaBYkZ
The incident took place in the Islamkot tehsil in the Tharparkar district in Sindh, Pakistan. According to the report, the teenage girl was abducted from the village. A cleric named Samaru Pir Jan Sirhandi thereafter facilitated the forced conversion, after which she was forcefully married to her abductor Shaukat, son of Murad Hanhrjo, her family members alleged.
The incident reportedly happened as Hindus in Pakistan’s Hyderabad haven taken to the streets to protest the forced religious conversion of their girls and boys. The protesters have been demanding immediate legislation on the issue of the abduction of minority girls.
Hindus in Pakistan live in perpetual fear of persecution at the hands of the Muslim majority. News reports of Hindu women kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off to their abductors have become par for the course across the length and breadth of Pakistan but particularly stark in the southern province of Sindh. Even courts and judiciary have failed in providing justice to the Hindus as they had, in many cases, sided with the abductors and ordered Hindu women to live with their kidnappers. And not just women, but men too have been the victim of Islamic conversions in Pakistan.
In another similar incident, a Hindu man was forcibly converted to Islam by a cleric in the Sindh province of Pakistan on October 9. The victim was identified as Ajay Kumar. Maulana Rashid Mahmood Soomro, the General Secretary of Jamiat Ulama-e-Sindh, facilitated the forced conversion at the Jamia Islamia Masjid in Larkana city of Sindh.
Mass conversion of Hindus in Sindh, Pakistan
In July last year, Opindia reported that as many as 60 Hindus were converted en masse to Islam in the Sindh province of Pakistan.
Similarly, in the year 2020, as many as 171 Hindu men, women and children belonging to the highly marginalised and socio-economically backward Bhil community have forcefully been converted to Islam in the Sindh province of Pakistan.
