Islamabad (TIP): Two Hindu sisters, reportedly aged 13 and 14, broke down outside a court in Pakistan’s Sindh province after it declined to send them home with their parents, according to journalists and minority-rights activists. The family alleged that Sita and Rupi, members of the Kachhi Kolhi community, were abducted, converted to Islam and married to Amjad Solangi and Mansoor Solangi, reported Sindh Renaissance, a US-based Sindhi-rights group. The court in Sindh’s Tando Allahyar district ordered that the sisters be moved to a safe house, even as they sobbed and pleaded, “We want to go home,” revealed a video posted by Veengas, a Pakistani journalist and activist.
A day later, Veengas reported that “another Hindu girl, 14-year-old Pansi Kohli”, had been abducted from Tando Allahyar on September 9. She said, going by reports, “six Hindu minor girls” in the Sindh district had been abducted and converted to Islam within 10 days.
Apart from the treatment of minorities in Pakistan, the case has put the spotlight on Tando Allahyar, a district where several abductions and religious conversions involving Hindu minors have previously been reported.
Sindh, home to most of Pakistan’s Hindu population, has emerged as the epicentre of complaints involving Hindu girls being abducted, converted and married to Muslim men. Poor families from the marginalised Kolhi, Bheel and Meghwar communities remain particularly vulnerable because of their limited access to police, courts, legal assistance, meaningful political representation, and their near-disenfranchisement in Pakistan.
Amnesty International says that “hundreds” of young Hindu women in Pakistan have faced abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage. The rights’ organisation has also warned of persistent discrimination against Pakistani Hindus, including attacks on their temples and businesses and misuse of blasphemy allegations.
“Is this some kind of state-sponsored group working to target Hindu Sindhis who are not willing to leave their motherland? Because if this isn’t an emergency, then what would an emergency look like? Save our girls!!” Pakistani social activist Sorath Sindhu posted on X.
The sisters from Ibrahim Colony in Tando Allahyar were produced before the court in connection with a kidnapping case reported the previous week. People present outside the court said the girls repeatedly asked to be returned to their family. Pakistani journalist Veengas described it as “heartbreaking to see the girls sobbing after the court refused to send them with their parents”.
Pakistani social activist Sorath Sindhu said the girls had expressed their wishes clearly during the proceedings. “We want to go home,” the activist quoted them as saying.
“No decision affecting them should be made without ensuring that they understand the process and can express their wishes freely… The court ordered that they be transferred to a safe house. We demand justice, protection from harm, and a fair, transparent, and child-sensitive process… The girls must be heard directly, provided with independent legal and psychosocial support,” Sorath Sindhu wrote on X. “Their age, stated wishes, and best interests must remain central to every decision.” Source: India Today
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