Pak Judge allows Hindu woman to live with husband after she denied forced conversion

A judicial magistrate in Pakistan's Baluchistan province has allowed a Hindu woman to live with her husband after her parents accused him of kidnapping their daughter and forcibly converting her to Islam.

A judicial magistrate in Pakistan's Baluchistan province has allowed a Hindu woman to live with her husband after her parents accused him of kidnapping their daughter and forcibly converting her to Islam. Reshma, who is from Garhi Sabhayo in the southern Sindh province, went missing after leaving her home on June 17.

Her parents suspected Dil Murad Chandio of having kidnapped and forcibly converting Reshma to Islam in order to marry her. Reshma, who belongs to the Bagri community, appeared in the court in Dera Allahyar this week with her husband and declared that she was over 20 years and married Chandio of her own free will.

She said she had taken the Muslim name Bashiran after converting to Islam. The judicial magistrate allowed her to go to her husband.

Her parents had lodged a complaint at the Saddar police station in Jacobabad. The Hindu community leaders have protested in the past over the increasing number of young Hindu girls being converted to Islam and married to Muslim men in interior Sindh.

They say that in majority of the cases the girls are kidnapped and then forcibly converted. According to a report in the Dawn newspaper, the Sindh government has attempted twice to outlaw forced conversions and marriages, including laying guidelines for the court process in the Protection of Minorities Bill, and placing an age limit of 18 years upon conversions and enabling better due process.

In 2016, the bill was unanimously passed by the Sindh Assembly, but religious parties objected to an age limit for conversions and threatened to besiege the assembly if it received approval of the governor, who then refused to sign the bill into law. In 2019, a revised version was introduced, but religious parties protested once again.

A sit-in was organized by Pir Mian Abdul Khaliq (Mian Mithu), a political and religious leader and allegedly a central figure in many cases of forced conversions of underage Hindu girls in Sindh. He and his group claim the girls are not forced, but fall in love and convert willingly. In March 2019, nearly 2,000 Hindus staged a sit-in demanding justice for two sisters, Reena and Raveena, who they said married Muslim men after being forcibly converted to Islam.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)