Amidst continued atrocities and discrimination against the Hindus and other religious minorities in Pakistan, a report has revealed that in the past twelve years, around fourteen thousand cases of abduction, gang rape, and religious conversion of Hindu girls have come to the fore. Reportedly, one Veerji Loond, a resident of Sindh and retired doctor from Liaquat University of Medical Sciences has appealed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to open the Indo-Pak border and grant visas to Pakistani Hindus willing to come to India to escape persecution at the hands of Islamists in Pakistan.
In the video, the Pakistani Sindhi Hindu man said that in the last twelve years around thirteen to fourteen thousand Hindu girls have been converted to Islam. In the viral video, he is heard saying that two days ago six Hindu girls were forced to change their religion.
“We have nothing to do with CAA or Indian politics. Our only appeal is just that you approve the applications of Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs for migration or seeking refugee status in India and grant them visas. There are people who have had their applications pending for over two years. My nephew wanted to migrate to India along with his sisters but his application was not approved, later his sisters were kidnapped and converted to Islam. We are helpless, our girls are trapped,” the Hindu man said.
He further lamented that Pakistani authorities, the government, the police and even the judiciary does not listen to the plight of Hindus.
“Our girls are sometimes brainwashed, sometimes they are taken away like goats and we cannot do anything as neither the police listen to us, nor the judges give justice. The chief minister also does nothing about it. Where shall we go, what shall we do? Our daughters and mothers cry and suffer, even you (PM Modi) had yours, though you lost her now. Please help us. Open the Khokhrapar border. These Hindus are so poor that they cannot even afford the lawyer’s fees when their daughters are abducted and are compelled to sell their huts. Despite all this, despite the victim telling the court that they have been forcibly converted yet the judges do no justice, maybe because we are Hindus,” he added.
An appeal from a Pakistani Hindu from Sindh to Prime Minister @narendramodi viral on social media requesting India to issue visa/asylum to Hindus who are being abducted, killed, tortured and forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan by Islamist radicals with Pakistan Govt support.… pic.twitter.com/Aiay6g4PAv
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) May 11, 2023
A Pakistani Hindu girl named Chanda was abducted from Hyderabad in Sindh had testified that she was forced to convert to Islam and married to her abductor Shaman Magsi and raped, however, the court instead of allowing the girl to return to her family, handed her over to her abductor. Later, when it was determined that the girl was a minor she was sent to a shelter home, meanwhile her abductor was not incriminated.
Pakistani Hindus residing in the refugee camps in Jodhpur’s Jaisalmer revealed the heart-wrenching tale of atrocities faced by them in Pakistan while speaking to Dainik Bhaskar.
Hindu woman raped by 12 Muslim men in Pakistan, forcibly converted to Islam
One Bheelji Rana used to work as a laborer in Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan. One day his wife Samadi was working in the fields when some Muslim men abducted her along with her six-month-old daughter. Later, it was found that she was gang-raped by 12 Muslim men and was converted to Islam with her name changed to Gulam Fatima. Bheelji said that somehow his daughter was saved and he fled to India. He said that he does not even know if his wife is alive or dead.
One Jamana, who is now residing in the Jodhpur refugee camp, was forced to leave her one-and-a-half-month-old daughter with relatives in Pakistan’s Kot Gulam Mohammad. According to one Wazir, he had to flee to India with his wife, leaving their seven-day-old infant behind. Another Pakistani Hindu staying in Ambedkarnagar Kali Beri Bheel Basti, Govind Bheel, stated that the situation of Hindus in Pakistan is so detrimental that when their visas are approved, they leave without their belongings or even their children.
A Pakistani Noroon told that his daughter studying in ninth standard was kidnapped by a police officer’s son with the assistance of the Islamists. Since then, he does not the whereabouts of her daughter. Another person said that there are countless Hindus and other non-Muslim families who are afraid to speak up against the atrocities meted out to them as their family members would be harmed if they do so.
Notably, a recent Human Rights Observer 2023 fact sheet revealed that in the year 2022, as many as 124 women belonging to minority communities were forcefully converted to Islam in the Islamic country. Out of this, 81 were Hindu, 42 were Christian and one was Sikh.
Further, the fact sheet revealed that 23 percent of girls were below 14 years of age, 36 percent of them were between the age of 14 and 18 years, and only 12 percent of the victims were adults, while the age of 28 percent of the victims was not reported.
In 2022, 65% of cases of forced religious conversion were reported in Sindh, 33% in Punjab, and 0.8% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, respectively.
