The barbaric act of abducting two Hindu girls aged 13 and 15 in Pakistan’s Sindh region has incited many sane voices in the country and in India too. The girls were abducted from their home on the eve of Holi and have since been forcibly converted and married off to Muslim men.
Many Pakistani journalists and liberal voices had highlighted the issue as one more example of the way minorities are being denied their basic rights in Pakistan.
After the news was circulated widely in both countries and images and videos of the girls went viral on social media, the heinous act of forcing two underage girls into religious conversion and then marriage has attracted widespread criticism. The concerned Mosque and the clerics seem to have no fear of the law as they proudly pronounce the underage girls converted and married.
Yesterday, Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, had taken cognizance of the issue and had instructed the Indian High Commission in Pakistan to send a report on the incident.
Sushma Swaraj’s move to seek details of the Incident had agitated quite a few people in Pakistan, including their Information and Broadcasting minister Ch Fawad Hussain, who saw it as an intervention in Pakistan’s internal matters. He had attempted to trigger a war of words with Sushma Swaraj who, in turn, had pointed out coolly that his agitation only shows Pakistan’s guilty conscience.
However, it seems that apart from Pakistani politicians and fundamentalists, Sushma Swaraj’s stand on the issue has managed to anger some people on this side of the border too.
Rifat Jawaid, the owner of AAP-centric propaganda blog Janta Ka Reporter, had become so agitated with Sushma Swaraj seeking a report from its own High Commission in Pakistan that he saw it as an attack on Pakistan’s ‘Muslim country’ identity and called for all Muslim countries in the world to rally against India and seek a report from the Indian government ‘every time a Muslim is targeted’ in India.
Speaking like a dedicated spokesperson of Pakistan, Jawed even passionately called for a UN resolution against India as there are ‘too many countries with Muslim rulers’.
It is indeed surprising that how some self-proclaimed flag bearers of human rights and liberalism have chosen to shut their eyes to the issue of two barely adolescent girls, aged 13 and 15, being married off to older men to be raped after a forcible conversion.
This is response to brazen kidnapping of minor girls. No remorse, no condemnation, straight attack. What a effing lowlife. And he has a blue tick. Hey @Twitter can you do something? https://t.co/wOixMTGdsb
— Sri Thiruvadanthai (@teasri) March 25, 2019
This is direct support to kidnap, rape and forced conversion. https://t.co/leD8diFIY0
— Pradeep Deshpande (@DeshpandePradep) March 25, 2019
There have been innumerable cases of Hindu and Christian girls being kidnapped, forcibly converted and being married to Muslims in Pakistan. In the case of the recent kidnappings in Sindh, the Hindu community there had to take to streets just to get an FIR lodged at the police station. The concerned Bharchoondi mosque and its chief Mian Mitho have been accused of systematically carrying out such acts over a long period of time and enjoying governmental patronage.
