KARACHI: The Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC) has appealed to the Supreme Court of Pakistan to take a suo motu notice of horrific rise in kidnappings and forced conversions and marriages of immature Hindu girls in Sindh.
The appeal was made at a meeting held here on Sunday, said a press statement. The meeting chaired by PHC Patron-in-chief and MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani reviewed the situation in the context of recent abduction of Hindu minor girl Ravita Meghwar from Tharparkar. The situation in the area from where Ravita was kidnapped is still very tense and the victim family has reportedly been forced to leave their home.
Dr Kumar demanded early recovery of the girl and said such incidents could be termed social crimes in any civilized society. He said Islam was a religion of peace and the PHC never opposed embracing Islam as a result of preaching or self-consent. The situation in Sindh was entirely different where the focus was only on converting Hindu kidnapped girls with the sole purpose to marry them without their consent, he said and added the majority of Pakistani people were peace-loving and believed in respect for others. But few elements were damaging the repute of the country at the international level.
Criticizing the Sindh government, he said that returning a unanimously-passed bill in the Sindh Assembly for the protection of minorities was a proof that the provincial government had become hostage to religious pressure groups. He said the rise in anti-Hindu incidents not only showed the failure of the provincial government in providing security to the non-Muslim community but was also impacting badly the socio-psychological condition of peaceful minorities. He said 5,000 Pakistani Hindus were being forced to migrate every year while the remaining had no other option but to keep quiet.
The meeting participants expressed sorrow that due to the influence of powerful kidnappers, the local police were not allowed to do anything for the recovery of the kidnapped girls. They said that after 15 days, the abductors presented the innocent girls in court with a certificate of conversion issued by some Madrasa to justify their crime.