In the year 2000, Mohini, a Hindu student in Sindh Pakistan, did not return home one day after college. Her parents panicked, and after an exhaustive search, reported her missing at the local police station. For 2 weeks there was no news. Then, a police officer revealed that Mohini had eloped with Kamal Khan, a manager at the local transport company, and converted to Islam. The father requested to meet his daughter, but the request was refused. He was told that his daughter was no longer willing to associate with infidels, but that he would be able to see her in court the next day, where she would make a declaration of her new faith. At court Mohini refused to talk to her parents, and repeated a prepared declaration of her conversion to Islam. The crowd assembled in the small court roared in applause, chanting slogans of "Nara-e-Takbir, Allah-o-Akbar". Mohini was whisked away to an unknown destination, without saying goodbye to her parents.
Heartbreaking as this must have been for Mohini's parents, perhaps over time they could have accepted it as it was apparently their daughter's will. But the story did not end there. Mohini's wedding swiftly ended in divorce. Subsequently, she married another Muslim man, in the same neighborhood. According to reports, she had been sold to her new husband, by her first spouse's family. This marriage too, ended in divorce, and Mohini was then again 'passed on' to a 3rd man, also reportedly for a price. Barely 6 months into her new marriage, Mohini died in mysterious circumstances. Her parents believed she had been killed while her husband said she committed suicide.
Though Mohini's tale is sad, such occurrences are far from rare for the Hindus of Pakistan. Many girls have met a sad fate after voluntary or forced conversion to Islam and subsequent marriage to Muslim men. Says a local Hindu, "If a girl from our community eloped with her paramour of her own will, perhaps over time we could digest it. However it is the horror of what transpires with the girls thereafter - and that with the active collusion of the administration - that is truly lamentable."
In 1998, a Hindu woman, Daya Kumari, was kidnapped along with her 2 young daughters, from her home in Shahi Bazaar. Her spouse requested an enquiry by the police. Not only was no action taken against the abductors, he was told that his wife and daughters had converted to Islam and that his wife had married one of the abductors. He was told not to seek to speak with them, as he now had nothing to do with them.
In another incident, a Hindu trader lodged an FIR at the local police station, charging a man named Niaz Abro with kidnapping his 15 year old daughter, Meena Kumari. In a rare show of duty, Abro was arrested, and said that the girl had eloped with him and converted to Islam, and that they were soon to be married. Abro was advised to get a good lawyer to fight the case. Abro didn't have the money for a lawyer. Finally he found a lawyer who agreed to fight the case on the condition that Abro's sister should be arried to the lawyer's mentally deranged son, which the Abro family consented to. The case was settled, and Niaz Abro was exonerated. But young Meena Kumari was not married to Niaz. Instead she was made to marry Niaz's 61 year old father! "She had to be punished for bringing bad luck to the family," said an Abro relative.
In yet another case, the father of a girl named Sunita Kumari, Pahlaj Rai, filed a report with the police that his daughter had been kidnapped. He got no help from the district administration. Instead, the officials informed him that Sunita had married a Muslim boy and converted to Islam, so he should not pursue the matter. The father continues to insist that his daughter was forcibly abducted.
Shakuntala, a labourer's daughter in Shikarpur, allegedly fled her house to live with he lover, Imdad Kalhoro, and embraced Islam. She was then married to someone other than Kalhoro. Although details are still not clear, the indications are that Shakuntala was sold in marriage by her lover's family, against her will.
On January 19th 1994, a Hindu girl named Daya Bai disappeared from her house in Darhaki area (Sindh province). She surfaced 10 days later outside the Deputy Commissioner's office, wearing bridal clothes, and accompanied by a gathering of several hundred men, some of whom were carrying automatic weapons, and were chanting "Allah-o-Akbar." During the 'wedding' ceremony that followed, Daya Bai's mother wept inconsolably, repeatedly striking her head on the floor in anguish. She was forbidden in strong words from seeking to contact her daughter.
These incidents appear to be the tip of an iceberg. Says Darshanlal, a young Hindu businessman, that the Islamic group, Jamaat-I-Islami have launched an aggressive and organized campaign for the last 15 years, against the Hindus remaining in Pakistan, who are particularly concentrated in the Sindh province. Speakers such as Dr Israr Ahmed had published and distributed material telling local citizens that Hindus should have no citizen's rights in an Islamic country, and hence that crimes against them were justified. Darshanlal added that Friday sermons at mosques in many areas, Jihad is often declared against Hindus in Sindh, and Muslims are exhorted to convert Hindu women to Islam by marrying them. "Such words inflame the thinking of even simple Muslims," says Rochiram a lawyer and human rights activist in Pakistan.
As a result of all this, in recent years, there has been the largest migration of Hindus from Pakistan to India and other countries since partition in 1947. There is no data to confirm how many Hindus have fled Pakistan in recent years, but reports suggest that they have migrated in large numbers, particularly the younger generation.
The Hindus in Pakistan contend that their insecurities are compounded manifold, because of the attitude of the administration and the judiciary. They say that in Pakistan that they have been subjected to every humiliation, but this phenomenon of abduction of women had shattered them. Says a local Hindu doctor "Us Hindus of Pakistan never contemplated leaving this country, that we saw as our own. We were determined to stay in our ancestral homeland, but now we are increasingly getting fed up with the situation, and want to call it a day."
Who in the world will take notice of the plight of these forgotten people?
The information for this article was taken from 2 sources:
December 2000 edition of Newsine, a Pakistan based publication
August 1994 edition of Indus-Vani, a monthly based in New-York