RAHIM YAR KHAN: A group of Hindu community members had recently taken to the street over alleged forced conversion of girls to Islam.

“Stop the forced conversion of Hindu girls after kidnapping them,” read a placard the protesters including minority councillors had held outside the Liaquatpur Press Club in the first week of April. Most protesters belonged to Jinnah Abadi at Chak 19-Abbasia, about 95 kilometres from here, in Liaquatpur.

A teenage girl ‘N’ was allegedly kidnapped by an influential person with the help of his father and brothers. During the protest the girl’s parents threatened that they would set their house ablaze if they were not provided justice. Police, however, assured the protesters that they would use all possible resources to provide them justice and lodged an FIR No 134/19 on April 5 against six suspects.

The girl’s father complained that six people abducted his daughter on March 13 and the word got round that the girl had reached Karachi with the main suspect and embraced Islam on March 14 at a seminary, Jamiatul Saeed Gulshan-i-Maimar. Her Muslim name is Noor Fatima and she tied the knot with the suspect, said the complainant.

He said the video of embracing Islam and solemnising Nikkah was uploaded on social media.

Rahim Yar Khan DPO Umar Farooq Salamat sent a police party to Karachi for the recovery of the girl but the officials could not achieve the objective.

A police source said the couple would appear before the Lahore High Court (LHC) Bahawalpur bench. He said police would quash the FIR in case of confirmation of their marriage.

The in-charge of a seminary in RYK told Dawn that more than 300 Hindu and Christian men and women had embraced Islam of their own free will during the last 10 years. He said there was no truth in the allegation of forced conversion of members of the minority communities.

Meanwhile, a minority councillor condemned what he said kidnap of the Hindu girls in Punjab and Sindh.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2019