Mehtab Rajput
A few days ago, a Hindu girl named Suman from Diplo Tharparkar was converted to Islam and the topic of forced conversion again came into discussion. Forced conversion means to convert someone into any religion forcefully. This is not only happening in Pakistan but in other countries as well. Like in Bangladesh, India, Srilanka etc., and I am personally against the forced conversion wherever it happens either in India or in Pakistan.
Following Suman´s conversion, many people showed their unconscious support for the forced conversion by declaring that it is the right of an individual to change religion! There is a question for the people who are defending individual rights that will they allow their own daughters and sisters to practice that right?
I agree to agree on this point; the conversion of anyone in any religious state like Pakistan is forced because its constitution and institutions loosely favour it. Some people might disagree on this point on the pretext of the right to change religion with one´s own will.
Will they favour adopting any religion?
No, they will argue in favour of any particular religion!
Those mualanas and religious people who are encouraging and defending forced conversion in Pakistan, what is their stance on the forced conversion of Muslims in India? The human rights commission estimates that 1000 Hindu and Christian girls are forcefully converted to Islam in Pakistan every year, including under-aged girls, while many cases go unreported.
In Sindh, in March 2022, Pooja Kummari, a girl belonging to a minority, was shot dead because she resisted a forced conversion bid. In 2020, Rankal Kumari from Mirpur Matheloar district of Sindh was abducted by Naveed Shah and was converted to Islam. When she was produced in court, she shouted that she wanted to go with her parents, but the judge didn´t listen to her and ordered to hand her over to a shelter home because the judge was under great pressure from the crowd of gunmen belonging to Mian Mitho alias Mian Abdul Haq (he was involved in her abduction and forced conversion) was present in the premises of court.
The comment of Mian Mitho on her statement about joining her parents was ridiculous. He said it´s natural to be emotional when seeing her parents, otherwise, she is straightforward to join Islam. In a shelter home, she was physically tortured, raped and nude videos were recorded to blackmail her. After this whole process of torture, she was produced once again in court, there were marks of physical violence on her body and she was looking like intoxicated and was forced to confess to join Islam.
A year ago, in Sindh, Gudi Kolhi was abducted and married to a person of her father´s age. Gudi´s father became mad in search of his daughter and now he is roaming in the streets. Recently, Gudi has come back and has revealed the whole story about how she was abducted and tortured physically and emotionally and was raped and how she has fled from a private jail.
Most of the girls who were converted forcefully, were underage and were married to aged people, which is illegal according to Islamic laws and Pakistan´s constitution, but the institutions of Pakistan support Mian Mithos (more than that maulana Mian Mitho), which is proved from the above example that how court and shelter home coordinated with extremists and any institution did not speak a word on the forced marriages and forced conversions of even underage girls. Parliament also remained a salient player by opposing the anti-forced conversion bill moved in 2021.
This is the situation of citizens of the state which is trying to combat its Islamophobia and voicing for the rights of minorities in the neighbouring countries in the international community. Probably this was to happen in the state who is encouraging and inciting religious extremism from its inception. Minorities also faced flurry of incidents like these, but this dumb and deaf state has not even wept crocodile tears for its minorities.
