The Pakistan Hindu Council has appealed to the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of the rise in kidnappings, forced conversions and forced marriages of underage Hindu girls to Muslim men in Sindh.
Council held for discuss the issue after media reports emerged earlier this week of the case of 16-year-old Ravita Meghwadh from Tharparkar whose family alleges she was abducted, forcibly converted and married off to a Muslim man “twice her age” in Umerkot. Meanwhile The parents of a 16-year-old Hindu girl who was allegedly abducted and converted before being married to a Muslim man in Pakistan have changed their location due to fear, a media report has said. Ravita Meghwar was abducted by some men from the influential Syed community in Tharparkar’s Nagarparkar area in the southeast Sindh province on June 6.
Pakistan Hindu Council patron-in-chief and MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani attended the meeting. Vankwani criticised the Sindh government for not passing the forced conversion bill which would have offered some respite to religious minorities. The bill officially titled Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities) Bill was passed unanimously by the Sindh Assembly last year, but the governor refused to sign it into law and sent it back to the assembly asking them to “reconsider it”.
He also said that “Five thousand Pakistani Hindus are being forced to migrate every year,” said Vankwani. “Remaining a poor community, they have no other option but to keep quiet.”
It is a general trend that abductors generally tend to present the girl in court after a couple of weeks with a conversion certificate from any madrasa to justify their crime and that presented legal cover for the police to do nothing.
When these girls are presented in court, they lack even the basic understanding of their newly-adopted religion and are not even eligible to acquire an identity card because they are so young, the participants noted.
The Pakistan Hindu Council was registered in 2005. The council represents the Hindu community on social and political issues, bringing them together to protect their interests, advance education and opportunity and protect the basic rights and freedoms, especially of worship and assembly, of Hindus all over Pakistan.