Story:
Abduction, Forced Conversion & Marriage of a Hindu Minor Girl in Pakistan:
This 9 year old is from Sindh, Pakistan. She was forcefully got abducted, converted to Islam & later married to a man aged to Her Father!
Situation of Hindus in Pak is equal to hell!
& No outrage in the news channels!
This is the reason India implementing CAB.
Fact Check:
A picture message doing rounds on social media claims to describe a case of Abduction, Forced Conversion & Marriage of Hindu Minor Girl in Pakistan. It claims to show the 9-year-old from Sindh abducted, converted to Islam & later married to a man at least 4-5 times older than her. Accompanying messages claim such is the situation of Hindus in Pakistan and there’s no outrage in news channels. They also say this is the reason India is implementing Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), 2019. The claims discussed here in detail are mixture of hoax and facts.
About the Incident Reported in Pakistan
The picture of the minor girl and the man 4-5 times older than her is real. On 3rd May 2019, Mohammad Somar was arrested after Nikkah (marriage contract) with the 10-year-old-girl before they were leaving. The incident happened in a village of Shikarpur area of Sindh province in Pakistan. Mohammad Somar confessed to media on paying the girl’s grandmother 250,000 Pakistani rupees for the wedding. When questioned the girl is minor, the man says grandmother of the girl had told him the girl is grown up.
Additional Inspector General of Police of Sukkur Region, Jamil Ahmed also tweeted about the unfortunate incident. He said Police saved the life of the 10 year old innocent girl.
Was it Abduction, Forced Conversion & Marriage of a Hindu Girl?
At the time of the arrest, the marriage officiator and people related to the girl (parents) fled from the scene. The grandmother and the crying minor girl were taken into police custody. The girl was sent to Women Protection Cell of Shikarpur. According to Police, both accused and the family of the young girl were being prosecuted. So, it is unclear whether the child was abducted in the first place. However, in a video showing a media person questioning the grandmother, looks like she calls the girl – Saraswati – a Hindu name.
On the other hand, aforementioned IGP and a report on Dawn News website dawnnews.tv name the 10 year old girl Malooka Sheikh (Guddi). There are no credible reports suggesting the girl was Hindu and religious conversion to Islam has taken place before the child marriage. Authenticity of that particular angle and claim is unclear. However, the incident of child marriage was popular in Pakistan and became the centre of discussion in TV debates at the time. It’s also because earlier in April 2019, the National Assembly of Pakistan had referred the bill to amend the child marriage restraint act 1929 and set 18 years of age for marriage of a girl.
India Implementing Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB)
The part of the claim saying India is implementing Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) citing religious persecution of Hindu minorities in neighboring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan is a fact. The bill in fact aims to provide relief to some of those minority people – Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Buddhists and Jains. Defence Minister of India Rajnath Singh explained the same, adding the amended Citizenship Act is not anti-Muslim.
About Abductions, Forceful Conversions & Marriages in Pakistan
Hindus are in fact the largest religious minority in Pakistan, concentrated more in the Southern Province of Sindh. Most of the Hindu minorities in Sindh do not have access to proper education, health or even basic amenities. They mostly work in agricultural fields of their landlords as bonded labor, becoming vulnerable to sexual harassment of Muslim men. Dalits are still treated untouchables and forced into low-status jobs that many Muslims refuse to take, like sweeping streets and sewage cleaning. The Hindus and other religious minority people are not treated well and forced to convert quite often. There are also many cases of rape on minor Hindu girls. In some places, Muslim majority landlords occupy Hindu lands in land mafia. All these factors create fear and insecurity among Hindus in Pakistan. Consequently, they plan to migrate to other countries.
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