A 19-year-old Hindu woman has been 'kidnapped' from her house in the Kothara village of Sindh's southeastern Tharparkar district, her husband has told police.
Roji Kolhi, the husband, filed a First Information Report on Friday at the Nagarparkar Police Station stating that two armed men, identified as Mohammad Ali Khoso and Ali Nawaz Khoso, barged into his house and took his wife away the previous day.
However, family members of one of the accused told Dawn that the girl may have eloped with one of the accused. The girl had left her house a few months ago to live with the said persons, they said. She had allegedly been returned to her family after elders from both families intervened in the matter.
She was subsequently married to Roji on December 4, 2017, as her family had wanted to settle the matter.
On the other hand, the affected family and the larger Kolhi community expressed concerns that the girl might be forcibly converted and married to one of the accused. A large number of the community's members staged a protest outside the police station to press police to recover the girl.
Nagarparkar police said they had arrested some relatives of the accused, apparently to pressure the family to produce the girl.
Tharparkar SSP Ameer Saud Magsi told Dawn that he had directed police to recover the girl as soon as possible and produce her in court.
He said that he was supervising the incident himself. He further said that raids were had been ordered in Thar, Umerkot and Mirpurkhas districts to arrest the accused and recover the girl.
