Hindu Human Rights

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Title: Sindh's Stolen Brides
Author: Mariana Baabar
Publication: Outlook
Date: Jan 23, 2006
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna...ver+Story&sid=1

Sindh's Stolen Brides

On the other side of the Thar, Hindus, especially girls, are forced into
Islam

MARIANA BAABAR

Hindus In Pakistan

    * Hindus constitute about 2.5 per cent, or 26 lakh, of Pakistans
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.

    * Other districts with sizeable population: Mirpur Khas (41 per cent),
Sanghar (35 per cent), Umerkot (43 per cent)

    * Nearly 82 per cent of Pakistani Hindus are lower caste, most of them
farm labourers

    * Cities with some Hindu population: Karachi, Hyderabad, Jacobabad,
Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta.

    * In Tharparkar, Hindus own land. Krishen Bheel, Gyan Chand and Ramesh
Lal are the Hindus in the Pakistan National Assembly.

***

Let me confess at the outset: Im 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 courts decision on a kidnap-and-conversion
case. Different voices narrate contradictory stories. I am befuddled for
the moment.

Soon, a frisson of excitement sweeps through the throng, as a police van
drives through the gate. Inside it is Mariam. Shes 13 years oldand
married! Mariam was Mashu, and Hindu, till the night of December 22, 2005.
I pick my way through the jostling crowd. Mariam is in a red burqa, her
gold nose ring sparkles. She tells me, "Im happy. I dont want to return
to my parents or brother." Whats the fuss about, I wonder.

Its quite another story under the pipal tree of the court compound.
Huddled under it are the villagers of Jhaluree, 20 km from Mirpur Khas.
Among them is Mashus father, Malo Sanafravo. He says that at 11 pm,
December 22, four armed men barged into their room. One of them was Malos
neighbour, Akbar. They picked up Mashu, bundled her into the waiting car.
"She was taken to Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandis village in Somarho tehsil."
There Mashu became Mariam and was married to Akbar.

Not true, insists husband Akbar. "Mariam has been always in my heart," he
gushes, saying, at 11 pm, December 22, it was she who had come over to his
house. But its true that the Pir converted her and married themit was
his idea that they issue statements in the court. "Mariam was sent to
Darul Aman in Hyderabad, in judicial custody," Akbar declares.

A 13-year-old choosing to convert and marry? A 13-year-old testifying in
the court, without her family by her side? Suspicious, I walk over to the
SHO, caught in the middle of a heated exchange between two groups. Someone
suggests he should allow the girl to meet her relatives. Before the
conversion yes, not now. She has now become Muslim, says the SHO. He
argues, "Theres a huge crowd here. If Mariam breaks down after seeing her
father, there will be a communal riot here in the compound."

A little later, there are celebrations as the word spreads: the court has
allowed the couple to live together. 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."

So, was Mashu abducted and forcibly converted?

In Mirpur Khas, truth resembles the mirage of the surrounding Thar desert,
teasing and tormenting me as I drive from Karachi into interior Sindh.

It tests your credulity, it challenges your journalistic skills. Wherever
I go, and whoever I meet, in disconsolate voices the Hindus talk about
missing girls; their stories resemble Mashusthe 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.
       
    So, was Mashu abducted and converted? In Mirpur Khas, the truth is
like the mirage of the Thar desert.   
       
   
    The script in their cases was similar to Mashus. "Only 10 per
cent of all conversions involving girls are voluntary; because of
romance," says Kanjee.

Ten per cent of what? No official figures are available. The DIG in Mirpur
Khas, Saleemullah, says,
"If theres need Ill collect these figures. Minorities are the safest in
Pakistan."

Saleemullah, perhaps, should tap the HRCP for statistics. Its director in
Lahore, I.A. Rehman, is an honourable man. Rehman told Outlook that the
HRCP 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. There have been cases of Hindu
girls, usually from economically better off families, eloping with their
Muslim boyfriends. Rehman says in most cases such marriages didnt last
long. With links to their families cut off, the girls were subsequently
forced to marry another Muslim or sucked into marriage rackets.

Nuzzhat Shirin, who works for the Lahore-based ngp Aurat Foundation,
understands why the girls dont 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 shes intimidated and cant 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 misfortuneand hope for the best.

Fifty incidents in five years represents just a percentage of the total
number of cases, says Kanjee, pointing out that a majority of such crimes
go unreported. "There have been 50 such incidents last year," insists
Krishen Bheel, who is a Hindu member of the National Assembly (MNA), the
Pakistani equivalent of the Lok Sabha. He begins to rattle out the cases
he remembers: two months back Sapna was kidnapped and converted in upper
Sindh; seven months earlier it was 17-year-old Lakshmi in Nawkot, and
then.... "The trend is increasing," he says. "If these conversions are
voluntary, then how come boys rarely ever convert?"

Only once did the popular resentment against abduction spill out in the
streets of Mirpur Khas. It was in the 80s: a girl named Sita had been
kidnapped. Some 70,000 Hindus turned up to protest the kidnapping. The
police opened fire, killing several. "Sita was never returned," Krishen
laments. "She had even told Justice Dhorab Patel, who later joined the
HRCP, that she had been forcibly converted.

We have now stopped agitating."

Instead, the Hindus take the support of civil rights groups and the media
to publicise abduction cases, hoping public scrutiny would goad the state
into action. On Dec 30, the day after the Mariam case was disposed, the
Supreme Court took cognisance of the complaint Qosheelas parents from
Ghotki, Sindh, had filed. They claimed their 13-year-old girl had been
kidnapped, converted, given the name of Hajra and married to a Muslim man.
The girl, as in most other cases, had said she had converted of her own
free will. A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftiqar Muhammad
Chaudhry, ordered the medical examination of the girl to determine whether
she had attained puberty (Islam permits marriage at that age).
       
    "A majority of such abductions and conversions go unreported,"
says Kanjee Bheel, of the HRCP.   
       
   
    Should it be proved otherwise, the husband could be tried for
rape.

Even cities are not immune to the menace. Last year, Sammo Amra and Champa
in Karachi received a letter from their three missing daughtersReena
(21), Reema (17) and Usha (19)informing that they had converted to Islam
and were ordained under the dictates of their new religion not to live
with infidels, including their Hindu parents. The letter bore the address
of Madrassa Taleemul Islam, Karachi. It prompted Supreme Court Bar
Association president Malik Mohammad Qayyum to petition the Supreme Court
in the first week of December. He accused the religious seminarys
administrator of using coercive methods to convert the three girls. On
December 16, the court ordered the police to shift the girls to the Edhi
Welfare Centre and provide protection to them until the time it was
ascertained they had been indeed compelled to convert to Islam.

Sensitive Muslim citizens feel the way to counter the menace is to
reinterpret and widen the scope of law. Major (retd) Kamran Shafi, an
absentee landlord from Sindh, cites the case of 17-year-old Kochlia, who
was kidnapped and gangraped in Jacobabad, Sindh, in Sept 2005. Four men
were arrested for the crime. They were subsequently released because
Kochlia stated in the court she had converted and was married to one of
them. Shafi asks, "Isnt something very, very wrong here?  Suppose the
poor girl was forced into changing her religion and marrying one of the
assailants so that they get off the hook? Cant the state prosecute the
four on its own, for their original crime of rape?"

The three Hindu MNAsKrishen Bheel, Gyan Chand and Ramesh Lalraised the
Kochlia case in the National Assembly. They claimed Kochlias statement
was not tenable as under the local Hindu custom and law a girl cant marry
of her own will until the age of 20. Since Kochlia is a minor, her
abductors should be tried for rape. Such an interpretation of existing
laws could provide ample relief to Hindus.

Till then, though, the fear of kidnap stalks the Hindus of Pakistan.
Krishen Bheel says Hindu girls are scared to go out; he has enrolled his
own children into a Christian school. He points to Mirpur Khas strange
predicament: theres freedom to worship, there are 10 temples which bustle
through the day with devotees; and yet Hindu girls here are kidnapped and
convertedand the community humiliated.

Perhaps these abductions are part of the general scenario of crime against
women in rural Pakistan (see box). Perhaps they are converted and married
to criminals to enable the latter to escape the dragnet of the law. Yet,
such arguments dont comfort the Hindus. Sat Ram, of Shadi Bali village
near Mirpur Khas, says Hindu girls are deprived of education because their
parents are apprehensive of sending them to schools located at a distance.
"They receive education only till the primary level. It isnt safe to send
them to school after that."

But the plight of Hindu women cant be seen just through the prism of
gender discrimination rampant in rural Sindh.

Reena Gul, of Sattar Nagar village, Mirpur Khas, says the boys too are
converted but their numbers are very few. The community here feels it is
the Islamists agenda to drive out non-Muslims from Pakistan. In fact,
Krishen told the National Assembly that even Hindu businessmen are being
kidnapped in Sindh for ransom. He said on the floor of the House, "Several
religious parties are reportedly behind the move to convince the people
that it is their responsibility to get rid of infidels from Pakistan,
(that) taking ransom from non-Muslims is not a sin."

I now set out to meet Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandi, whose name surfaces
repeatedly in conversion stories.
       
    Ruksana was Chotee. Poverty and a drug abuser husband made her
convert to Islam.   
   
    The drive from Mirpur Khas to Sarhandi village, Somarho tehsil, is
through a picturesque landscape. Peacocks dance in the field and gypsies
pitch their tents for the night. Even the Pir appears tranquil, his white
flowing beard and winsome disposition camouflaging his mission.

Yet, when he begins to talk, he conceals nothing. Yes, the Pir declares,
he has been converting the Hindus for the last 30 years. Perhaps his
claims of converting a 1,000 families a year is a boast. "Theres a surah
in the Quran which speaks specifically about conversion, especially about
conversion of women," he says to justify his mission. "Recently, three
Hindu girls were brought to me. I named them Benazir, Sanam and Nusrat," 
he reveals, with the righteous air of someone who had bestowed a favour. 
"These Hindu women are mistreated by their husbands who do nothing but
watch TV."

The Pir rubbishes the allegation that he converts abducted Hindu girls.
The unwilling are sent back. Yet, he adds in the same breath, "In many
cases Hindu girls are kidnapped and kept as keeps. But these keeps are not
converted. But believe me, they are very happy."

I express the desire to meet the women whom he had converted and found
sanctuary with him. The Pir agrees, even allows us to photograph them,
contrary to the local tradition. Into the room, the women walk. Rehana,
50, was earlier Nabee; she converted three years ago, after the death of
her husband. "I had no one to turn to. If we do not convert we would not
be helped by this family." It was the same reason for 35-year-old Mariam,
who came here seven years back. "Under the Pirs protection, I earn at
least Rs 200 a month." Ruksana was earlier Chotee, and hails from Umerkot.
Extreme poverty and a drug-addict husband persuaded her to take the
extreme step. "I brought my four kids as well," she declares.

As I talk to these women, I realise most of them are widows or wallowing
in poverty. I mention this to the Pir. He says, "The government is
responsible for all Hindus and non-Hindus. When the government doesnt
help them, they come to us."

Forced or economically enticed, the Hindu converts do not symbolise
Islams appeal. Rather they represent the states failure to provide
succour to the poor and protect their religious rights. Perhaps its also
symptomatic of the sickness afflicting the Pakistani state. As they say,
the condition of the minorities is an indicator of a nations health.

By Mariana Baabar in interior Sindh with Amir Mir in Lahore
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