The latest in a series of such atrocities committed against members of the minority community was the kidnapping of a woman, two teenage girls, and two teenage girls from the Hindu community in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Two of the girls were then forcedly converted to Islam and married to Muslim men.
According to police, Meena Meghwar, a 14-year-old Hindu girl, was taken from the Nasarpur neighbourhood, and a Hindu teen girl was taken while walking home from the market in Mirpurkhas.
All three cases are being looked into, according to a local police officer in Mirpurkhas. The officer claimed that Rakhi, a married lady, says that she converted and wed the Muslim man of her own free will.
The kidnapping and forced conversion of young Hindu girls have grown to be a serious issue in Sindh’s interior, where there is a sizable Hindu community in the Thar, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Ghotki, and Khairpur regions. Laborers make up the majority of the Hindu community.
Teenage Hindu Kareena Kumari claimed in court in June of this year that she was converted to Islam against her will and wed a Muslim guy. Three Hindu girls — Satran Oad, Kaveeta Bheel, and Anita Bheel — were kidnapped in March of this year, converted to Islam, and married to Muslim men within six months.
In a different incident, Pooja Kumari was fatally shot outside her home in Rohri, Sukkur, on March 21. A Pakistani man allegedly proposed to her, but when she declined, he and two of his accomplices shot her a few days later.
On July 16, 2019, the Sindh Assembly took up the issue of Hindu girls being kidnapped and forcibly converted in various districts of the province of Sindh. A resolution was discussed and unanimously passed after being modified in response to some lawmakers’ objections that it not be limited to Hindu girls only.
However, the bill that made forced religious conversions illegal was later defeated in the assembly. Another comparable bill was put forth but was defeated the previous year.
