KARACHI, March 10: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Saturday expressed its concern over reports of forced conversion and marriage of Hindu girls in Sindh — ‘on average 25 cases a month’ — and urged the authorities concerned to ensure protection to the minorities.

HRCP vice chairperson Amarnath Motumal and council members Prof Badar Soomro, Inder Ahuja and Asad Iqbal Butt told journalists at a press conference that the culprits were benefiting from loopholes in the existing laws.

They called for enactment of new comprehensive laws in order to restore the sense of security in the community.

Relatives of four girls who were allegedly kidnapped recently — Rinkle Kumari, Dr Lata Kumari, Asha Mohandas and Bharti Naraindas — also appeared before the media and complained that the police extended to them no help while the subordinate judiciary did not appear helpful either.

“The culprits are well-armed and enjoy the support of influential religious people,” they said.

The HRCP activists stressed that the police should register an FIR as soon as the parents or relatives of kidnap victims approached them with a complaint. “If a kidnapped adult girl is recovered and produced in court, she should be sent to Darul Amman immediately for a period equal to her captivity, or for at least one month, before she is asked to record her first statement. Then she should be asked to decide whether she wants to go with her parents/relatives or with alleged kidnapper/s,” they said. However, they added, if the kidnapped girl was a minor, she should immediately be reunited with her parents.

The HRCP activists said that there could be no objection if anyone embraced Islam of their own accord, but such a person should be at liberty to meet his or her parents and satisfy them that it was not a forced decision.

“But in the case of the four girls, they were not allowed to meet their parents anymore and this proves that they are under pressure,” they argued.

Speaking about the growing menace of kidnappings, forced marriages and forced conversions, they said that Hindus now tended to marry off their girls as soon as they reached adulthood or migrate to some other country.

The rights activists deplored that even President Asif Ali Zardari’s orders about the recovery of kidnapped Hindu girls were not being followed by the law-enforcement agencies.

“The state must fulfil its primary responsibility of protecting the citizens’ right to live, and follow and profess their religion,” they stressed.

Prof Soomro told the media that it was strange that Hindus converting to Islam were almost always young girls and not elderly people.

Rinkle Kumari’s father, Nandlal, who is a schoolteacher, narrated his ordeal after the disappearance of his daughter. He said he was driven from pillar to post when he approached the police to lodge an FIR of her kidnapping. Finally when the FIR was registered, he alleged, he had to face harassment as the court area was surrounded by heavily armed religious activists. He alleged that the court acted in haste and handed over his daughter to the police and eventually allowed her to go with her ‘kidnapper’.

“My wife and other daughters were not allowed to meet Rinkle.”

Dr Lata Kumari’s father, Dr Ramesh Kumar, a resident of Jacobabad, said that his daughter had been to Karachi in connection with her advanced studies when she was kidnapped by a man, said to be a judge’s son.

A resident of Lyari, Naraindas, a driver, said his daughter, Bharti, used to go to an industrial home in the neighbourhood to learn sewing and embroidery. She was kidnapped by a son of a policeman, he alleged. He said that Bharti was a minor — born in 1996 — and could not have a freewell marriage.

Ramesh Kumar, a relative of 16-year-old girl Asha Mohandas, who hails from Jacobabad, said she used to go to a beauty parlour for training. He alleged that she was kidnapped from the parlour.