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India Today
16 hours ago
- Politics
- India Today
Embraced Islam willingly: Pak media on 3 Hindu sisters kidnapped by teachers
A disturbing case of the alleged abduction and forced conversion of three Hindu sisters and their male cousin by their teachers in Pakistan has been downplayed in local media reports, which claim the group embraced Islam male cousin and one of the girls are reportedly minors, aged 13 and 15 respectively, while the other two girls, aged 19 and 21, are adults. According to family members, all four were abducted last week in Shahdadpur city of Sindh following a joint operation, the police rescued them from Karachi. After being rescued, the four were presented before Judicial Magistrate Aijaz Ali Chadio and recorded their statements under Section 164 of the CrPC. The court ruled that minors should be returned to their parents, whereas adults, both medical students, should be sent to a safe house to "decide freely", as per reports in multiple Pakistani news some Pakistani media outlets reported that the victims converted voluntarily, even as activists and Hindu community members alleged coercion and institutional apathy of the police and the arrested suspects, Farhan Khaskheli and Zulfiqar Khaskheli, who were teachers of the Hindu siblings, were released on surety bonds after kidnapping charges were dropped."Shahdadpur: Four Hindu siblings embraced Islam in Sindh," the Karachi-based ARY News headlined their news report after the court granted the two accused judge also instructed the parents not to discuss matters of religion with the girls, and directed the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sanghar to provide security to the family, reported The Friday Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC) took suo-motu notice of the case, calling forced conversions "illegal" and demanding action from the journalist Veengas J said, "If such incidents had occurred in other countries, Bilawal Bhutto or elite media journalists and activists would have delivered sermons on human rights and ethics. However, their grave silence in the case of Hindu girls and a boy in Shahdadpur, where minors were converted, is glaring".Meanwhile, Bangkok-based Pakistani human rights activist Faraz Pervaiz wrote on X that minors were falsely declared adults, their original IDs were ignored, no clerics were held accountable, even as he alleged that religious minorities were not safe in ARY reported that the four siblings themselves testified to having embraced Islam willingly, an assertion that, given Pakistan's track record on minority rights, could very well be the result of coercion or members of the four Hindus, along with the Hindu community body, Panchayat, have alleged, both in court and publicly, that the individuals were forcibly abducted and converted to incident has drawn widespread anger across Sindh and members of the Hindu minority group are reportedly demanding protection under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.- Ends
Express Tribune
6 days ago
- Express Tribune
Court settles conversion of three Hindu sisters, cousin
The controversy surrounding three Hindu sisters and their minor cousin who embraced Islam was settled in a court of law in Sanghar district on Friday apparently to the dismay of the parents. The court allowed the two adult sisters to live independently and practice their new religion while the police was told to handover the minor sister and cousin to the parents with a condition that the two will not be coerced in the matter of religion. The court set free the arrested computer teacher Farhan Khaskheli, who was blamed for allegedly kidnapping the complainants children at gunpoint and for compelling them to change religion, and his brother Zulfiqar Khaskheli. They, besides two others, were booked in an FIR lodged on June 18 on the parents' complaint. The parents of Dashina Bai and Harjeet Kumar, whose Muslim names are Sidra and Abdul Rafay, were directed to submit an undertaking with a personal recognizance (PR) bond of Rs10 million each, assuring that they will not pressurize their children to revert to their old religion. "... [a] person's religious belief isn't tangible and couldn't be seen or touched, as such faith is the matter of heart and conviction, therefore, no court could declare said conversion as invalid and void," the judge Asif Ali underlined. The court further ordered the police to shift the adult sisters Jiya and Diya, who also renamed themselves as Mariam and Khadija, as well as the minors to Gosha-e-Aafiat Trust of Jamia Masjid Al-Falah in Karachi. The minors' custody will be given to the parents after they submit the PR bond. During the hearing the three sisters and their male cousin deposed before the court that they accepted Islam without compulsion or greed. They also absolved the accused persons of the charges of kidnapping. "The statements of 17 years old Dashina and 14 years old Harjeet have been recorded and both the minors have deposed that they have embraced Islam with their own free will," the judge noted. Quoting verse number 256 of Surah Baqrah from the Holy book, the judge stated that Islam prohibited forced conversion. But he distinguished the case in question from the one in which element of force becomes evident. "... it can't be out of the box to say that minors lacked legal capacity to abjure their religion and the change of religion didn't, ipso facto, deprive a parent of right to custody of a child and applicants being the real parents of minors are entitled to the custody." Three sisters and their cousin left their home and accepted Islam on June 18. The Hindu community reacted to the incident by alleging that their children have been kidnapped. However, the sisters and their cousins released their video statements on social media, stating that they have embraced Islam. Still the police lodged a kidnapping FIR on the parents' complaint and on June 19 they recovered all the four from a shelter house near Katti Pahari area in Karachi and brought them back to Sanghar. On Friday morning they all were produced before the concerned court to depose.
