On Monday (22nd October), a dreadful case of sexual assault and atrocities on minorities came to the fore from Pakistan. This is after a Hindu woman identified as Miran Kolhi was gang-raped by Shafaq Bhargari and his friends and was forced to give a false statement by a woman police officer.
According to a report by South Asian Digest, the woman was threatened by a woman police officer in Pakistan identified as Momal Laghari, and was asked to give a false statement in favour of the accused.
The video of the incident went viral over social media. It was posted by Faraz Pervaiz, a Christian who has been accused of blasphemy by the Pakistani locals for allegedly criticizing Prophet Mohammed through one of his social media posts. The woman in the video could be heard saying that the woman SHO Laghari threatened her to give a statement in favor of the accused.
Shocking Miran Kolhi, #Pakistan
— Faraz Pervaiz (@FarazPervaiz3) October 22, 2023
A #Hindu girl who is a victim of rape, Woman SHO Momal Laghari and the accused woman named as case man threatened me and forced me to give a false statement.
They both took me to a room near the court and threatened that you should declare that… pic.twitter.com/954Lv8Qe29
“Woman SHO Momal Laghari and the accused man threatened me and forced me to give a false statement. They both took me to a room near the court and threatened that I should declare that I am marrying Shafaq Bhargari, otherwise, they would send me to jail and kill me,’ the victim woman could be heard saying in the video.
The incident is said to have happened in September this year. However, it came to the fore only after Shiva Kachhi who fights for the rights of minorities in Pakistan posted about the incident and revealed that the girl was abducted and brutally raped by Shafaq Bhargari son of Ghulam Haider Bhargari. Kachhi noted that the girl somehow managed to escape from the spot and reached home.
کوٹ غلام محمد میرپورخاص
— Shiva Kachhi (دراوڙ)🇵🇰 (@FaqirShiva) October 1, 2023
کولہی برادری کی نوجوان لڑکی کو اغوا کر کے اجتمائی جنسی زیادتی کا نشانہ بنایا گیا۔
رات گئے گائون خادم بھرانی میں سات سفاک ملزمان شفاق بھرگڑی ولد غلام حیدر بھرگڑی، عمیر بھرگڑی، نکاش بھرگڑی اور دیگر ملزمان کمسن لڑکی میران کولہی ولد کستورو کولہی کو گھر سے لے… pic.twitter.com/Hk8QwzKJuj
As per the report, the girl was abducted by seven individuals including Shafaq Bhargari, Umair Bhargari, Nikash Bhargari, and others, and was forcefully gang raped. The girl somehow managed to escape from the spot after the incident and sought help from her relatives. Despite this, the police had failed to file the case.
Later one of the police personnel and the accused threatened the woman to give a statement in favor of the accused saying that the duo (accused and the victim) were going to marry each other.
The Hindus in Pakistan, especially the women face brutal atrocities at the hands of the Pakistani Muslims. Recently, a report revealed that in the past twelve years, around fourteen thousand cases of abduction, gang rape, and religious conversion of Hindu girls have come to the fore from Pakistan.
One Veerji Loond, a resident of Sindh and retired doctor from Liaquat University of Medical Sciences had appealed to PM Modi this May, to open the Indo-Pak border and grant visas to Pakistani Hindus willing to come to India to escape persecution at the hands of Islamists in Pakistan. The Pakistani Sindhi Hindu man could be heard saying in the video that in the last twelve years around thirteen to fourteen thousand Hindu girls had been converted to Islam.
An appeal from a Pakistani Hindu from Sindh to Prime Minister @narendramodi viral on social media requesting India to issue visa/asylum to Hindus who are being abducted, killed, tortured and forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan by Islamist radicals with Pakistan Govt support.… pic.twitter.com/Aiay6g4PAv
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) May 11, 2023
“Our girls are sometimes brainwashed, sometimes they are taken away like goats and we cannot do anything as neither the police listen to us, nor the judges give justice. The chief minister also does nothing about it. Where shall we go, what shall we do? Our daughters and mothers cry and suffer. These Hindus are so poor that they cannot even afford the lawyer’s fees when their daughters are abducted and are compelled to sell their huts. Despite all this, despite the victim telling the court that they have been forcibly converted yet the judges do no justice, maybe because we are Hindus,” he added.
Recently, in December 2022, a Pakistani Hindu girl named Chanda was abducted from Hyderabad in Sindh. She had testified that she was forced to convert to Islam and married to her abductor Shaman Magsi and raped, however, the court instead of allowing the girl to return to her family, handed her over to her abductor. Later, when it was determined that the girl was a minor she was sent to a shelter home, meanwhile her abductor was not incriminated.
One Bheelji Rana used to work as a laborer in Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan. One day his wife Samadi was working in the fields when some Muslim men abducted her along with her six-month-old daughter. Later, it was found that she was gang-raped by 12 Muslim men and was converted to Islam with her name changed to Gulam Fatima. Bheelji said that somehow his daughter was saved and he fled to India. He said that he does not even know if his wife is alive or dead.
A recent Human Rights Observer 2023 fact sheet revealed that in the year 2022, as many as 124 women belonging to minority communities were forcefully converted to Islam in Pakistan. Out of this, 81 were Hindu, 42 were Christian and one was Sikh.
Further, the fact sheet revealed that 23 percent of girls were below 14 years of age, 36 percent of them were between the age of 14 and 18 years, and only 12 percent of the victims were adults, while the age of 28 percent of the victims was not reported.
