“Sindh’s Stolen Brides” – Excerpts
I first came across this disturbing article, “Sindh’s Stolen Brides” several months ago but forgot to post it.
I read it again today…with a mixture of dismay, anger and helplessness…
Is anyone listening to the plight of these poor families? Where are our BJP friends? Why dont they raise this in Parliament? and Vishwa Hindu Parishad? Surely this is a serious matter? or do Hindus in Pakistan matter less than Hindus in India? How about Arundhati Roy? better still Amnesty International? Anyone?
The article , written by Mariana Baabar delves into how Hindus in Sindh, especially girls, are forced into Islam. Some excerpts :
- Hindus constitute about 2.5 per cent, or 26 lakh, of Pakistan’s population.
- Though sprinkled all over Pakistan, 95 per cent of Hindus are in Sindh.
- Only Tharparkar district in Sindh has Hindus in majority: 51 per cent.
“…I’m travelling in interior Sindh to verify specifically the reported widespread menace of abduction of Hindu girls, their forcible conversion to Islam and betrothal to Muslim men. My first port of call is the district court of Mirpur Khas. I promptly mingle among the crowd waiting for the court’s decision on a kidnap-and-conversion case. Different voices narrate contradictory stories. I am befuddled for the moment.…
A 13-year-old choosing to convert and marry? A 13-year-old testifying in the court, without her family by her side?…
Standing next to me is Kanjee Rano Bheel. He works for an NGO in the education sector; volunteers for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) as well. “In just two hours Mashu was converted and married,” Kanjee says incredulously.
Disappointment and helpless rage fleet across his face. “In Darul Aman the girls are kept away from parents and pressured into issuing statements favourable to the abductors. They tame stubborn girls through death threats.”
…In Mirpur Khas, truth resembles the mirage of the surrounding Thar desert, teasing and tormenting me as I drive from Karachi into interior Sindh…Wherever I go, and whoever I meet, in disconsolate voices the Hindus talk about “missing girls”; their stories resemble Mashu’s – the theme of abduction, conversion, often followed by marriage, is common to most narrations. The girls then appear in courts to issue statements declaring their conversion was voluntary. All links to the natal family and the community are severed; they are lost to the family forever.
On January 4, 2005, Marvi, 18, and Hemi, 16, were kidnapped from Kunri village in Umerkot district; three months later, on March 3, 14-year-old Raji was abducted from Aslam Town Jhuddo, Mirpur Khas. The script in their cases was similar to Mashu’s.
…Rehman told Outlook that the HRCP (Human Rights Commission of Pakistan) has, between Jan 2000 to Dec 2005, documented 50 cases involving conversion of Hindu girls to Islam. Its investigations too endorse what I had found in interior Sindh. In many cases where it was claimed the girls had eloped with their Muslim partners, the HRCP found that most were, in fact, abducted, forcibly married to Muslim men or sold to them.
…Nuzzhat Shirin, who works for the Lahore-based ngp Aurat Foundation, understands why the girls don’t reveal their plight at the time they are presented in court. “When a Hindu is forced to become Muslim, such a ruckus is made that if the young kidnapped girl appears in court, the fanatics yell, scream, throw rose petals in the air and follow the youth into the building so that she’s intimidated and can’t speak,” Shirin explains. Social stigma arising from the loss of virginity, and the consequent difficulty of finding a groom, prompt these women to accept their misfortune and hope for the best. …
Human rights activists are perturbed by the erosion of minority rights, particularly the alarming frequency with which cases of forcible conversion of Hindu girls are surfacing. Ansar Buney, chairman of the Ansar Buney Welfare Trust, is dismayed: “It’s heart-rending to see forced conversion of Hindus to Islam, since the Pakistan that Jinnah had envisioned granted absolute religious freedom to the minorities.” He then asks, “Have you ever heard of an Indian Muslim girl being forced to embrace Hinduism?”
Human rights activist Hina Jillani says Hindus and Christians in Pakistan are looked down upon. “That is why they have to take up inferior jobs; their chances of rising in any field is low,” she told Outlook.”
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I would encourage everyone to read the article in full. The story needs to be retold and disseminated widely….this would be just a small step in trying to help these poor girls…and if anyone has any ideas of what else we can do, please email me at jai.dharmaATgmail.com
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Image courtesy: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?229886
I’m lost for words after reading this article. But do u really feel anything can be done to help these girls keeping in mind that the country they are in is equally bad towards the women in general? Unless this issue of forceful conversions of hindu girls is brought into light on larger scale (through media probably) i don’t think the condition can improve. I on my part can forward this article to as many people as i can. I think a documentary should be made on this issue and telecasted in on all possible channels.
Now surley some muslim-lover will come up with a theory that equal number of Muslim girls ( if not more ) are also abducted by Hindus in India ! Many will try to prove that islam actually respects women. But won’ be, because islam does not.
Mohammed openly expressed his contempt for women on several occassions. He ordered men to ‘discipline’ them severly ( whatever that means ). He married a six year old child ! ( his fans try to save his face by telling you that ‘okay, but remember he did not lay her until she was nine…’. What a logic ! ) On the context of marrying a woman far younger than him itself, the oft-said defence of the faithful is : he also married a far older women in the beginning !
Using ‘kafir’ women for demographic benefits is an established weapon of islam, a part of Jehad. Islamic countries apart, even in Indian towns they behave in this way. In advanced countries like UK the mulla, even the common muslims openly encourage their boys to ‘marry’ Hindu and Sikh girls. It has been noticed that dinars come all they way from Saudi Arabia to encourage and reward such acts ! Many Hindu and Sikh girls are crying tears of blood and telling the others not to repeat the mistake. Because it is one way street, one can go inside Islam but cannot come out live, she will spent the rest of life working in a kitchen cooking stinking halal meat and producing a whole new team of suicide-bombers !
Mohammed clearly sanctioned such kidnappings, on one of the numerous occasions when a group of his fans snatched a non-muslim woman and asked for his advice on if they could fuck her, Mohammed tactically warned them to have patience, his reason : it will be difficult to get ransom out a deflowered woman !
I agree with Mr. Jagmohan Singh
Not only muslim-lovers also some fake seculars will come up. They must understand that; bringing up the issues in light or understanding people’s suffering is not to be meant as suggestion to fight back and get the things done by increasing rift among two religions. But it is to be for awerness and making sure not to make mistake in understanding people’s mind around us. In return, it can help us in saving innocent lives of both the sides.
Jai Hind
If you thought forced conversions of Hindu girls happened only in Pakistan, think again…
Read this post: http://hindudharma.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/hindu-girls-targeted-for-islam/ and in particular, this harrowing story: http://www.hinduvoice.co.uk/Issues/2/Silence.htm
Muslims have always been loyal to their religion and never to their country of birth.
I do not understand why do they want to migrate to US,UK,Canada or anywhere, when they still want to live in middle age.Muslims should be banned to migrate anywhere unless they prove their secular credentials.
I have met a lot of muslims who prima facie look very educated,very modern but as soon as the conversation turns to religion,they will start telling you in what way Islam is better than other faiths.Well,They can go and throw themselves in a pond with their faith.Muslims themselves are doing the biggest disservice to their religion.
In India why should Hindu live in fear of Muslims.I am not saying that they should asked to leave.But there should be no special status to them.Let them live like a minority and ensure that they never become a majority(what they are already trying to do).
And Hindus do not have to go out of their way to accommodate them in any way as this is not done anywhere. All the bloody pseudo-secularists who cry a lot over alleged mistreatment of muslims should better send their daughters to Pakistan or other muslim country to be converted to Islam and migrate themselves also as these are more dangerous to India than Muslims fundamentalists.
Why Arundhati Roy and others never raise a their voice when there is so much atrocities on Hindus by Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh and now even in UK.
India is predominantly Hindu and should remain one forever.We can tolerate some minorities provided they are ready to live by the rule which Hindus live.(as Hindus are also forced to live by the rules of Muslim countries) and it would be a great service to India if we can just remove the word Secular from our minds and dictionary.
Well said Raja.
well done raja,if there was more pople like you this world would be a safer place.
An article from 14 years ago.
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“Brides of contention” by Hasan Mujtaba
(Source: Monthly INDUS-VANI, New York, U.S.A., August 1994)
PLIGHT OF HINDU WOMEN IN SINDH, PAKISTAN
On January 19, 1994, a Hindu girl named Daya Bai disappeared from her house in Daharki, District Ghotki (Sind, Pakistan). She surfaced 10 days later outside the Deputy Commissioner’s Office, wearing bridal clothes, and accompanied by several hundred strong gathering, many of whom were armed with automatic weapons and led by Pirs of Bharchundi, chanting ‘Allah-o-Akbar’. During the ‘nikah’ (wedding) that followed, Daya Bai’s mother wept inconsolably, repeatedly striking her hand on the floor in anguish. “Let me meet my daughter, even if she is getting married”, she implored, but her pleas fell on deaf earn.
For the Hindu community in Sukkur and Larkana, Daya Bai’s disappearance, conversion to Islam and subsequent marriage with a Muslim in suspicious circumstances is not unprecedented occurrence. Between January and February, at least three Hindu girls (Daya Bai from Daharki, Shakuntala from Pano Aquil, and Bhagwanti, the daughter of a Larkana Professor) were allegedly kidnapped from their homes at gunpoint. Of the three, Daya Baiand Bhagawanti were converted to Islam and married Muslim men whereas Shakuntala’s whereabouts are not known and was married to some on other than her abductor. Speculation abounds that she may have been sold.
The story of the daughter of Koromal, Hindu leader from Larkana, is similar. There are several such instances in which girls, believed to have eloped with her Muslim lovers, are not marked to them, but were either married off to some on else or killed.
The increasing incidences of forcible conversion and marriages of Hindu girls have compelled some Hindus to migrate to India to protect their daughters and family honour. “The parents of girls who have met this fate are like the living dead”, says Ghanshyamdas, a social worker in Kashmore.
Similarly, as Mukhi Nihalchand, a Hindu community leader in Rohri, points out, forcible conversion of Hindu men continues unreported and unabated. The conversion at Bharchundi of a Hindu boy from a wealthy Umarkot family sometimes back is a case in point. After a while, the boy got reconverted to Hinduism and migrated to India with his family.
The history of forcible conversion of Hindus dates back to the pre-Talpar period when a Hindu was considered converted to Islam on the flimsiest of pretexts; for instance, if he pronounced the word raso (string), bystanders would swear that he had said Rasool (Prophet) and had become a Muslim. Excesses during Talpur era increased against the Hindus. Any Hindu seen riding a horse would be immediately converted by force because it was believed that the horse was an Islamic of transportation.
Naunmal, one-time loyalist of the Talpurs and traitor in the eyes of the Sindhis, encouraged the British to attack Sind because he and some of his relatives had been forcibly circumcised by the Muslims. The first British spy, James Burnes, in fact wrote in ‘The Court of Mirs’ an account of his travels in Sind, “I fail to understand how Hindus still prefer living in Sind despite all kinds of atrocities perpetrated against them.”
Some shrines in Sind, such as those of Makhdoom Muhammed Hashim and Hafiz Mohammed Siddiqui, the mosques in Thanvi and the Madrasaas in Matiari and Amrot, have acquired reputation as centres for corcible conversion. The Pirs of Bharchundi have continued to patronize excesses committed against Hindus by the majority Muslim populace. In the early 70s, a man who murdered seven Hindus in a temple in Sukkur was acclaimed as a hero by the religio-political parties in the area.
Communist activist Sobho Gyanchandani recalls an incident during the early 50s when he was summoned by an Intelligence Officer for his political views “The Officer told me, ‘You have committed three crimes: you are a Sindhi, you are a Communist, and, above all, you are a Hindu, and there is no place for Hindus here’”. Sobho was jailed along with Faiz Ahmed Faiz and others in the infamous Rawalpindi Conspiracy case.
During the 1995 and 1971 wars, Hindu government, living or posted along the Pak-Indian border in Sind, were transformed to far-flung areas.
The darkest period for Sindhi Hindus in recent history, however, was when dacoits held the province to ransom and forces of religious ethnicity and religious fanaticism predominated. Vitriloic tirades against Hindus, such those by Dr. Israr Ahmed, published in leading daily, helped to spread the message of hate. General Zia’s patronage of the Mullahs encouraged the Jamaat-i-Islami to launch organized campaign against the Hindus in Sind. As a result, in recent years, there has been the largest migration of Hindus to India since the exodus at Partition.
Hindus were also primarily on the receiving end from dacoit-gangs ingesting Sind at this time. The first victim of kidnapping was a Hindu trader from Daharki. Hindus were easy prey because they had no access to State machinery. Says a Sindhi feudal, who is suspected to be ‘patharidar’, “Wealthy Hindus had to pay protection money to the dacoit gangs and their patrons, to avoid being kidnapped”. “Some Sindhi nationalist organisation were also hand in glove in kidnapping them or receiving protection money”, says a bitter young Hindu whose father was kidnapped.
Recently, in the backlash of the Babri incident, the M.Q.M. procession, led by Shabbir Hashmi, attacked a temple at Pucca Qila and looted a considerable quantity of gold from there. “There is irrefutable evidence of abetment by religious and ethnic organisations, Intelligence agencies and local influentials of those who attacked the lives, properties and temple of Hindus”, states Sobho Gyanchandani.
Unlike many parts of Sind, Hindus living in Sikkur and Larkana dominate grain and agriculture market. Until Partition, many of the Hindus lived in surrounding rural areas. Those who did not migrate to India relocated to the urban centers. Their uneasy relationship with Muslim neighbour is manifested by the fact that instead of residing in individual residences scattered over a large area, they usually live in sprawling havelis comprising of a hundred or more dwellings. “We feel isolated and insecure”, says Darshanlal, a young businessman in Ghotki. Even young boys are rarely seen walking alone.
In the Friday sermons in many towns across Sind, Jehad is often declared against the Hindus and Muslim are exhorted to convert Hindu women to Islam by marrying them. “Such words influence the thinking of even simple Muslims”, says Rochiram, a senior lawyer and Human Rights activist in Mirpurkhas.
Haresh Kumar, a Hindu Economist, maintain that “This is an entirely new phenomena which never existed during my schooldays”. He says that his eight-year-old daughter Kalpana and ten-year-old nephew Mohan complain that they are asked by their classmates as to why they don’t become Muslims. “Mohan’s classmates don’t even let him drink water from the same glass”, he says.
For the common Hindu of Sind, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. In Tharparkar and Mirphurkhas districts, where more than 90 percent of Pakistan’s Hindus live, they are prime targets of the Intelligence officials. All the mail from Hindus between India and Pakistan is censored. Intelligence officials extort monthly bribes from Hindu who regularly communicate with their relatives in India.
Confronted with sustained harassment, humiliation and victimisation, many Hindu families in Sindh have migrated to India and continue to do so. Says a Hindu in Tharparker, “Among those applying for visas at the Indian consulate in Karachi are a considerable number of Hindus from the interior Sind who plan to permanently settle in India. In a crowd of 700, at least 300 are Hindus of whom 75 percent have no intention of returning to Pakistan”.
“Many of us have not even seen India nor do we have any relatives there”, says Pyarelal from Sukkur. Another Hindu from Larkana points out, “Not a single Hindu has ever been proven guilty of being an Indian agent in any court of law”, and still the persecution continues.
More news of Hindus from Pakistan being forced to convert to Islam for jobs etc. News of wives and childern being abducted by Taliban and being ‘illtreated’.
So the hindus have been migrating to India slowly from Rajasthan border since last 3 years as per this report by Thar express. Its a shame that people are being forced to move away from their homes, their lands, their occupations etc.
You never know, considering the situation there in Pak, even the mainstream muslim population there might slowly start crossing the border into India, and our secular government will only be obligated to invite them. We have already experienced that from the other side – Bangladesh.
News-report link
-Regards
@Raja, I aapreciate your thoughts and support you.
I dont want to be called a secular myself as well.
But what can we do? Saying something is easy, we can say out of anger, frustration. But how to change the things? Any plans? Willing to collaborate?
Then lets unite and fight aginst these devil folces.
Jai Hind.
There are two aspects to this. Conversion from Hinduism begs the question what exactly does it stand for? The RSS if any knows its history has shirked the question of religious identity because to it and its affiliates the Vedic injunction “the whole world is a family” finds it hard not to include Islam as just another path to God. That is the explanation for the lack of the BJP’s protests on the issue. If we ask ourselves, does Hindus have a set of core religious beliefs which it adheres to strictly and fanatical zeal in the way of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, then the answer is much less clear cut and hardly in the affirmative. The Sikhs who discarded much of the peripheral nonsense of Hinduism have been able to provide the answer your readers are in need of. The RSS has been trying to Sikhism to the panthian of Hinduism’s diverse set of religious belief. Nothing could be more crass and stupid. I am not saying everything is right with Sikhism but the Sikh character is one that approximates best to the ancient Hindu character who was brave and fearless. The modern Hindu cannot make the comparison. If what I say is accepted, then Bharat as the home of Hindus would find it natural to accept a law of return on the same terms as the Jews of Israel. Hindu suffering under Islam has been comparable to the Jewish experience. The reset button is not going to be pressed by the BJP or the Congress or any other party in Bharat under the existing political dispensation. Unless you feel strongly enough to end that by all means available, then you will only keep adding fruitlessly the column inches of groans and moans to know effect whatsoever.
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