A married Hindu woman Shanti Jog was abducted from the Sindh Province of Pakistan province and was raped after she refused to convert to Islam. The woman alleged that she was gang-raped by three men for three days before she managed to escape.
The woman uploaded a video on social media where she alleged that she was raped in Samaro town, Umarkot District and a case hasn’t been registered.
A local Hindu leader said that the police haven’t registered a case and both the woman and her mother were sitting outside the police station.
In her video, the woman named the accused and stated that she was abducted by Ibrahim Mangrio, Punho Mangrio and their accomplice. After being raped for three days, the woman managed to escape from the abductors and returned home.
There have been frequent reports of abduction and forced conversion of Hindu women in Pakistan mainly Sindh. Sindh has a large Hindu population in Thar, Umerkot, Ghotki, Mirpurkhas and Khairpur areas.
As per the latest information shared by Kachhi, one person was arrested in the matter while two were still absconding.
Earlier in December 2022, a 40-year-old Hindu woman was brutally killed in Sinjhoro town. The woman was beheaded and her private parts were chopped off.
In June last year, a teenage Hindu girl Kareena Kumari told a local court here that she was forcibly converted to Islam and married to a Muslim man.
Earlier, on January 16, 2023, the United Nations (UN) experts expressed grave concern about the alarming rise in coerced marriages, kidnappings and forced conversions of minor girls belonging to religious minority communities in Pakistan.
The UN experts had called for immediate action to ensure justice for the minor victims. They emphasised, “We urge the Government to take immediate steps to prevent and thoroughly investigate these acts objectively and in line with domestic legislation and international human rights commitments.”
“Perpetrators must be held fully accountable…We are deeply troubled to hear that girls as young as 13 are being kidnapped from their families, trafficked to locations far from their homes, made to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced to convert to Islam, all in violation of international human rights law,” UN experts added.
“Pakistani authorities must adopt and enforce legislation prohibiting forced conversions, forced and child marriages, kidnapping, and trafficking, and abide by their international human rights commitments to combat slavery and human trafficking and uphold the rights of women and children,” the UN experts said.
Human rights groups say that forced conversion and marriage of young women from minority communities is a growing problem in Pakistan.
According to a report, over 1000 underage girls belonging to the minority Hindu, Christian and Sikh communities are kidnapped and forcefully converted to Islam every year subjected to rape and forcibly married to old men in Pakistan.
Forced conversion and kidnapping of Hindu girls, and their forced marriage to old Muslim men are mainly in the Sindh province, which hosts about 90 per cent of the minority community (Hindu and Sikh).
Notably, Systemic persecution of minorities, including Christians, Ahmadiya, Sikhs, and Hindus through Draconian blasphemy laws, forced conversions and marriages and extrajudicial killings, has become a regular phenomenon in Pakistan. Attacks on Holy and ancient sites of religious minorities in Pakistan is also a major issue.
More than 6,700 women and girls were abducted in the Islamic country’s Punjab province in the first half of 2021. Out of that, 1,890 women were raped, 3,721 were tortured and 752 girls were raped, Duniya News reported.
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