Nirendra Dev:
Authorities took notice of the video and ordered the police to investigate the matter.
The plight of Hindu minorities in Pakistan, especially for young women, continues unabated.
"Abducted and forcibly converted Reena Meghwar cries: "They kidnapped me. I want to go to my parents. Plz send me to my parents. If I state this in court, police will abduct me. They have threatened that they will kill my brothers & family. This is how our girls are being treated," tweeted writer Ayaz Latif Palijo, also President of Qomi Awami Tahreek (QAT) in Pakistan.
On Monday, July 26, Ms Meghwar, who was 'forced to marry a man who forged documents to show her as Muslim', was given into her parents' custody in Badin after a local court passed the orders even as her video seeking justice made the rounds on social media.
Authorities took notice of the video and ordered the police to investigate the matter.
"Subsequently, the police took the woman into custody and produced her before a local court in Badin, where she told the judge that she was subjected to undesirable attitude by the accused," said a report in Pakistan's leading English daily 'Dawn.'
The woman’s parents had also approached the Sindh High Court against their daughter’s alleged forced conversion and marriage, which led to the registration of a first information report against the accused.
In the east of the Indus river, Badin is the capital town of the Badin District in the Sindh region.
Along with Hindu women, Sikhs also often suffer immensely in Pakistan. Sometime back there was an incident related to a 17-year-old girl named Bulbul Kaur, who is the daughter of Granthi of Gurdwara Panja Sahib Preetam Singh was abducted by two Muslim men in Panja Saheb of Pakistan. Jagjit Kaur, also a Sikh young woman was also converted into Islam and she was also married to a Muslim man.
Sikhs have also staged a "strong protest march" against the growing instances of such incidents of abductions and forced conversion of minor girls in Pakistan.
It may be mentioned here that the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Annual Report 2020 had also noted that in Hindu, Christian, and Sikh communities, young women, often underage, continue to be 'kidnapped for forced conversion to Islam.'
On average, it is alleged that at least 1,000 women are forcibly converted to Islam each year in Pakistan.
Lately, an episode around kidnapping and 'torture' of the daughter of Afghanistan's envoy to Islamabad has left the ruling regime in Kabul anguished.
India has also strongly flayed such incidents involving a senior diplomat's kith.
MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a virtual media briefing that this is of course a “shocking incident."
"This involves two other countries namely Afghanistan and Pakistan, and usually we would not comment on it.
However, since the Interior Minister of Pakistan has dragged India into it, I would only like to say that even by their standards, Pakistan’s denial of the victim’s account is stooping to a new low,” he has said.
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