- By Ajeet Kumar
- Thu, 29 May 2025 02:50 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Karachi: A woman belonging to the minority Hindu community in Pakistan has been allegedly kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam and married off to a Muslim man, her family has claimed. The abducted woman's family has appealed to the government and authorities to recover her in Dighri area of Mirpurkhas in the southern Sindh province on Wednesday.
The husband of the woman and her four children came to the offices of the Darawar Ittehad Pakistan in Mirpurkhas to plead their case. Shiva Kaachi, who heads an NGO which fights for the welfare and rights of minorities particularly Hindus, said the woman was kidnapped, then forcibly converted to Islam and married off to a Muslim man named Shehbaz Khashkheli.
“The police have not yet registered an FIR and are not cooperating and we will now approach the courts,” he said.
The husband narrated that last week Shehbaz Khashkheli and his men had abducted his wife from near his house. “Two days later they took her to a religious seminary and converted her to Islam and Kashkheli then married her without her will or consent. Is this justice with minorities in Pakistan,” he said.
Violence against Hindus in Pakistan
After partition from India in 1947, and the creation of Pakistan as a separate state for Muslims, marriages of the Hindu minority were not officially recognised, leaving Hindu women without protection under the law. Hindus in Pakistan are now estimated to number around 3 million out of a population estimated at nearly 190 million. Discrimination and violence against religious minorities are common.
"Our married daughters and sisters have been kidnapped by local non-Hindu influentials and forced to convert to Islam," lawyer Arjun Das, chairman of Pakistan Council of Meghwar, a Hindu community, who campaigned for the marriage law told news agency Reuters. "Then they have been gotten forcibly re-married off to their influential kidnappers ... without their victims' consent."
(With inputs from agencies)