Yet another case of abduction, forced conversion to Islam and nikah of a Hindu minor girl has emerged in Sindh, Pakistan.

This time, 16-year-old Indra Deewan, d/o Giyan Mal has been abducted, converted to Islam and forced into nikah sex slavery by Sajid Hussain in Tando Jam town of Hyderabad district in Sindh province, reports Pakistani human rights activist Narain Das Bheel.

Indra’s school documents show her date of birth as 02 June 2007 with a smiling photo of a young girl. The nikahnama in Urdu makes a mockery even of Sindh law which prohibits child marriage of those under 18.

She has been shown as a 19-year-old adult in the nikahnama and an affidavit filed on her behalf where she is listed as a Muslim woman named ‘Naimat’, and which states she has ‘willingly left her parents to marry Hussain and has not been abducted’.

A petition has also been filed which makes Indra’s family as the accused! It says that her cousins and maternal uncles are not happy with her ‘change of religion and marriage’, and are ‘threatening to murder the newly married couple or implicate Hussain in false cases’, and asks for protection from authorities.

Anyone who is aware of the ground reality in Pakistan and the institutionalized discrimination that Hindus and other minorities face, would know how laughable the idea of a Hindu family threatening a Muslim is.

Such affidavits and other documents are par for the course in such cases. There is a well-established ecosystem of lawyers and mosques-madrassas that issue such conversion certificates, nikahnamas etc.

Hindu girls of all ages, as well as married Hindu women, are vulnerable to abduction, rape, forced conversion and sex slavery in Pakistan, where 1000-2000 such cases are reported annually in Sindh alone.

Here are some other recent cases reported by Narain Das –

Samaro, Umerkot district, Sindh (image 1): Hindu minor girl Jaishree d/o Chagan Kohli abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married to her abductor Nazeer Dhonkai

Kunri, Umerkot district, Sindh (image 2): 8-year-old Narna Bheel was abducted by Hanif Khaskheli.

Karachi, Sindh (image 3): Hindu woman Premi along with her minor child was abducted from Hijrat colony, Karachi.