A court in Mirpurkhas, Sindh, ruled in favour of a man who abducted a 15-year-old Hindu girl, Karishma Ramesh, and forcibly married her, and sent the girl back with her alleged kidnapper.
The man allegedly abducted the minor girl from Naukot, Sindh, and forcible converted her to Islam earlier this week. The girl was then forcibly married to the kidnapper.
According to the reports, the girl was kidnapped on February 15th from the Naukot market.
The court also disallowed the girl’s parents from meeting her.
Earlier, in yet another case of persecution of the Hindu community in Pakistan, an 11-year-old girl, Ashu, was allegedly abducted from Umerkot, Sindh.
The family appealed to the local government for the minor girl’s recovery.
The forced conversion of underage Hindu girls to Islam in Sindh is a severe issue. Human rights groups have continuously urged the government authorities to introduce laws regarding forced conversations.
Earlier, the United Nations also urged Pakistan to curtail the practice of forced marriages of young girls from religious minorities to Muslim men. The United Nations also called on Pakistani authorities to adopt and implement legislation in this regard.
In a statement, the UN further “expressed alarm” that young girls from religious minorities are kidnapped, trafficked, forcibly converted to Islam, and forced to marry men. The statement called on Pakistani authorities to curb this practice and uphold international human rights law.
Moreover, according to a recent report by the United States Institute of Peace, Pakistan has witnessed a surge in extremism and intolerance of diversity and dissent as the state-sanctioned laws and conservative narratives facilitate religious extremist elements and support their narrative, leaving little space for religious inclusion.
