Amritsar: A 17 year old sikh girl was forced to embrace Islam after she was abducted and then forcibly married to a Muslim in Buner, District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, province of Pakistan.
The 17 yr old Priya Thakur a resident of Ghorghast village was forcibly married to Wajid Ali.
Police arrested Wajid and the girl after her family filed a complaint and sent them to ‘Darul aman’( house of protection), said Hira Singh, a Karachi based lawyer, to Times of India. He also added the authorities have now appointed an investigation committee to look into the allegations made by the girl’s family.
“The Muslims took out a big rally where they talked of Jihad against us if the girl was returned”, Pakistani media quoted Mohinder Lal, uncle of Priya, saying so.
The advocate says the girl was brought to court. She gave a statement that she wanted to return to her parents. The court can intervene only if the girl gives a statement agreeing to the allegations made by her family. He adds, “But the major question is whether the local Muslim society will let her do so. Under those circumstances, the only way for her family’s survival is to migrate to India,” he said.
Human Rights Activists from Peshawar, Gurpal Singh said such instances when reported about girl embracing Islam, there have been Muslim rallies supporting them. This fear of losing their daughter’s to other communities does not let parents send their girls for basic education.
Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, Member of Pakistan national assembly and a Hindu leader,said such cases were not common earlier but due to the bill passed by minority community over forced conversions unanimously passed by the Sindh assembly is the reason behind such cases.
But this January, Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, Governor returned the bill on the advice of chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, as reported in TOI.