In another attack against the minority Hindu community of Pakistan, an 18-year-old girl, Pooja Oad, was shot dead in the street of the Sindh district after she resisted attempts to abduct her, reported Friday Times. Pooja Oad, was shot dead in Rohi, Sukkur after she resisted an abduction attempt.
An 18-year-old Hindu girl, Pooja Oad, was reportedly shot dead in Rohi, Sukkur, during a failed abduction attempt. The girl was said to have been shot in the middle of the street after she put up resistance to the attackers: Pakistan media
— ANI (@ANI) March 22, 2022
According to Pakistani reporter and commentator Naila Inayat, it was one Wahid Lashari who tried to abduct Pooja Oad and shot her dead when she resisted the attempt.
In the land of the pure where every day Hindu, Christian daughters are lost to abductions, forced conversions, marriages and Pakistan continues to be a bystander. Pooja Kumari Odh, an 18-year-old shot dead by Wahid Lashari on resisting abduction, conversion in Sukkur, Sindh. pic.twitter.com/7Yo6DQdp9R
— Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) March 21, 2022
Hindus, who are a minority in the Islamic nation of Pakistan are regularly targeted with hate, abductions, rapes, forced marriages and murder. According to the Peoples Commission for Minorities’ Rights and the Centre for Social Justice, 156 incidents of forced conversions took place between 2013 and 2019, it said.
In 2019, a bill outlawing forced conversions was introduced, however, due to the influence of Islamists in Pakistan, it was never passed and the minorities still suffer the consequences.
A 2019 field investigation report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has reaffirmed an unpleasant reality that is already known for far too long—minorities in Pakistan live under constant fear of persecution as their perpetrators enjoy court sanctions, support from the influential and affluent section of the society and patronage from political leaders.
The courts in Pakistan have consistently failed in providing justice for Hindus in Pakistan. In fact, in some cases, the courts have empowered the culprits responsible for abducting and forcibly converting the Hindu and Christian minorities. In the case of Reena and Raveena, for example, two underage Hindu girls who disappeared from their homes in Daharki city and were later found to be married to Muslim men after being converted to Islam, the Supreme Court granted only 5 minutes for the mother to meet her daughters. The mother later reportedly said that both her daughters were continuously weeping and looked fearful. Similarly, in June 2020, a district magistrate allowed a Muslim man to keep his Hindu wife even after the parents of the girl alleged that their daughter was kidnapped and forcibly married off to the man.
Even Pakistan’s civil society turns a blind eye to the sufferings of the Hindu families whose daughters are abducted, forcibly converted and married off to older Muslim men. Most good lawyers hesitated in taking on such cases, fearing social ostracism, the residents lamented. The lack of access to legal counsel was also exacerbated by the fact that most of the Hindus in Pakistan lived in abject poverty, which severely hampered their ability to afford legal services.
