A minor Pakistani Hindu girl Jiji Bheel, the 11-year-old daughter of Jago Bheel from Tando Allahyar in Sindh, was abducted by Azim Ghumrani, a 40-year-old Muslim neighbor, at gunpoint.
She was taken to Umerkot. A video has emerged of the scared looking child, reportedly at a police station, saying that ‘she left home of her own free will’. She says she never went to school.
Such coerced statements are standard operating procedure of Pakistan’s institutionalized abduction-raped-forced conversion-nikah-sex slavery racket that preys on Hindu and other minority girls with impunity – with powerful Pirs (Sufi clerics) like Mian Mithoo controlling this racket with full knowledge of govt and Army.
As per activists, Azim Ghumrani, the person who abducted Jiji, was also brought to the Umerkot police station for ‘questioning’. While this may offer a slight ray of hope, human rights activists who track such cases and understand how the system works in Pakistan, know that such police/judicial action is often perfunctory, and almost invariably the girl is handed back to her abductor aka ‘husband’.
Hindus in Pakistan have to hide their religion because they are afraid of violence and abuse. Girls are often not sent to school as parents fear them being abducted. Even celebrating Hindu festivals or going to temples is risky and often leads to hate crimes. Hindu children are stuck in a cycle of poverty and not being able to read or write because there aren’t enough school options, and the few districts in Sindh with high concentration of Hindus are some of the most under-developed and neglected parts of Pakistan.
But the biggest fear for a Hindu parent in Pakistan is the fear of their daughter being forced to convert to Islam and pushed into a life of sex slavery. These girls suffer sexual abuse, physical violence, and are often trafficked once their ‘husband’ grows tired of sexually exploiting them.
Many such cases simply go under the radar, with hardly any reportage in mainstream media.
In April, another minor child Nilan Kolhi, also 11-12 years old, was abducted by Altaf Tingri and his accomplices from her home at night while she and her family were sleeping in the village of Haji Sultan Tangri near Naukot, in the same Mirpur Khas district of Sindh.
Minority rights organization Pakistan Darawer Itehad reported that overruling Nilan’s parents, the police mentioned her age as 17-18 in the FIR they reluctantly lodged. It was later learnt that Nilan had been forcibly converted to Islam and married to her abductor, with the conversion certificate stating her age as 19.
In the same month, another 11-year-old Leena Meghwar was abducted – the Islamists stormed into her house, tied up the parents and took the girl. She was later threatened into giving a statement supporting her abductor. The poor, hapless parents told local media that police had done nothing to help them apart from lodging the FIR.
In yet another case from April, minor Hindu girl Soorath Meghwar, daughter of Chandiram Meghwar, residing near Islamkot in Tharparkar district of Sindh, was forcibly converted to Islam and married to a Muslim man. The conversion and marriage to Araz Muhammad Adhijo were carried out at notorious Pir Jan Agha Jan Sarhandi dargah at Samaro.
A video shows a terrified-looking Soorath, with possible bruising near her left eye, sitting next to her much-older ‘husband’. The conversion certificate issued by the Sufi conversion factory at Samaro, says that Soorath will henceforth be known as Zubeida and that her age is 20 years.
On April 28, another Hindu girl, Resham Kolhi, became Ayesha Shaikh after conversion to Islam and was married off to Tando Ghulam Ali at the very same Pir Jan Agha Sarhandi dargah. It is noteworthy that Sufism is touted as the ‘moderate’ face of Sunni Islam by many apologists.
In May, another minor girl Lachmi d/o Pahalwan Bhaat from Sindhri, Mirpur Khas district of Sindh, was abducted and forcefully converted to Islam by a maulvi named Munir Ahmed from Rahim Yar Khan, Punjab, who then married her off to her abductor Imtiaz Ali. Lachmi became ‘Aisha Bibi’ after this forced conversion.
Incidentally, all these abductions, forced conversions and child marriages take place despite the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act prohibiting the marriage of children under the age of 18 years – that law only exists on paper. The powerful Islamist lobby has ensured that another law intended to prohibit the conversion of minors under 18 without parental consent has failed to come into force.
At least 1000 Hindu and other minority community girls suffer such sex slavery every year in Sindh province alone. Sufi dargahs like Bharchundi Sharif in Ghotki district run by the notorious cleric-politician Mian Abdul Haq aka Mian Mithoo and the Sarhandi Dargah in Samaro, Umerkot district run by Pir Mohammad Ayub Jan Sarhandi are centers of such forced conversions – it is alleged that girls taken there are also raped, video-graphed, assaulted and tutored on what statement to give to magistrates if their case ever reaches court.
Apart from this, Pakistani Hindus face systemic and institutionalized persecution and discrimination, such as frequent attacks on Hindu temples, demonization in education curriculum, bonded labor, untouchability, and antipathy of police and judiciary leading to denial of basic human rights.
