Minor Hindu girl Chanda Maharaj has been found to be a minor by a medical board constituted by a court in Sindh, Pakistan. The board ruled that Chanda’s age is 16 years, which would make her ‘marriage’ with Shaman Magsi Baloch illegal under Sindh’s Child Marriages Restraint Act 2013 which prohibits the marriage of any child under the age of 18 years, and provides penalties for a male contracting party and the person who solemnises the marriage.
Yet, in a shocking ruling, the Sindh court did not reunite the clearly distressed girl with her parents, but instead sent her to back to Dar-ul-Aman i.e. a women’s shelter home.
Chanda was kidnapped in August while walking back to home with her elder sister. She was recovered after over 2 months due to efforts of human rights activists like Faqir Shiva Kachhi and others who put pressure on the Sindh government. Videos of Chanda’s tearful reunion with her mother and sisters had gone viral, although the clearly frightened girl did not open up about her ordeal in the brief time she got with her loved ones.
As per our sources, Chanda predictably told the magistrate that she was ’19 years old’ and had married Shaman Magsi Baloch our of her ‘own free will’. The poor girl also reportedly said that her mother ‘used to beat her’ due to which she ‘ran away’. But when her family and lawyers protested that she was under severe mental trauma and had been intimidated to make that statement, the court ordered a medical test to determine her age.
Shaman Magsi has not been apprehended yet, and there are unconfirmed reports that he was arrested but later released.
Now, the family’s stand that Chanda was pressurized to make a false statement to the magistrate has been clearly vindicated with the medical board finding that she is just 16 years old, not 19. Chanda’s family still maintains she is barely 14-15 years old, but they have no age document proof. Lack of proper identity documents is an issue that most poor Hindus struggle with in Pakistan. Even Hindu marriages were not formally recognized until recently.
The court’s decision to send her back to the ‘shelter home’ (many activists claim that these shelter homes are not safe, as authorities make them out to be) can only be called a travesty of justice. The next hearing in the matter is scheduled for October 31. Many
Here are some responses from concerned netizens who have been consistently raising their voices against the institutionalized discrimination and persecution of Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan, especially the annual abduction-rape-forced conversion of at least 1000 girls from minority communities:
