Editorial on Forced Conversions: 'By Means Fair or Foul'

[Guest guest]

[This is a follow-up on an earlier news post on the kidnapping and

forced conversion to Islam of Hindu girls in Pakistan {click "Up

Thread" to read original post. The following is a thought-provoking

editorial from the Jan 4, 2006, issue of The Statesman, of Kolkata:]

 

BY MEANS FAIR OR FOUL

 

By Kavita Suri, Jammu-based Special Representative, The Statesman.

 

(Jan 4, 2006): Two months ago, Sanao Amra Menghwar and his wife

Champa from Punjab Colony, Karachi, returned home to find their three

daughters Usha, Reena and Reema missing. Sanao Amra searched for them

frantically for two-three days. He went to the police but was

apparently refused help. A few days later, his neighbours handed him

some documents received through the courier. The documents signed by

the missing girls stated that they had embraced Islam.

 

Sanao Amra believes that his daughters were kidnapped and then

forcibly converted to Islam. Reena and Usha were engaged to be

married soon.

 

Sanao, who had been running from pillar to post for a clue about his

daughters' whereabouts since mid-October, is one among many Hindu

fathers in Pakistan who have seen their daughters getting kidnapped

by Islamic zealots and then converted to Islam.

 

Many similar incidents have occurred in several districts of Sindh.

At least 19 such abduction cases have been reported in Karachi alone

and at least six Hindu girls met the same fate a few months ago in

Jacobabad (a tribal area heavily inhabited by Hindus) and Larkana

districts of Pakistan.

 

In recent years, at least 30 Hindu girls have married Muslim men

after forceful or voluntary conversion to Islam.

 

This alarming trend of Muslims kidnapping Pakistani Hindu girls and

forcing them to convert to Islam has worried the minority Hindu

community in Pakistan.

 

Though the community members even held a demonstration outside

Karachi Press Club to condemn such kidnappings and conversions,

Pakistani society turned a deaf ear to their frantic calls for help.

Not one TV channel mentioned their plight.

 

But the issue was felt deeply by Hindus of Britain who held a massive

demonstration outside the Pakistani High Commission in London last

week.

 

The rally organised by the Hindu Human Rights, a London-based

organisation fighting for the rights of Hindus worldwide, aimed to

highlight the persecution, discrimination and other abuses against

Hindus in Pakistan.

 

The rally was supported by various Hindus groups in Britain,

including the Indo-European Kashmiri Forum; Hindu Council, UK; Vishwa

Hindu Parishad, Bangladesh and Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity

Council. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Pakistan High

Commission holding placards and banners protesting against the

kidnappings of Hindu girls in Pakistan.

 

"The Hindu minority of Pakistan, numbering some 2.5 million people,

not only suffers marginalisation and discrimination, kidnappings also

take place under the nose of government machinery, the very apparatus

which should be helping them and treating them on an equal footing

with other citizens, especially the majority community," said Anil

Bhanot, general secretary, Hindu Council, UK who is also associated

with Hindu Human Rights.

 

Before 1947, Hindus constituted approximately 25 per cent of the

population of what became Pakistan. Even after Partition, Hindus who

did not want to leave their ancestral properties and get uprooted,

continued living in Pakistan and were still a 15 per cent minority.

Their population is the largest in Sindh province, but there are

Hindu communities dotted all over Pakistan, said Sunil Bakshi,

president, Indo-European Kashmiri Forum, UK.

 

"The recent upsurge in the kidnappings of Hindu women and girls in

Pakistan has worried us and raised deep concerns about the rights and

future of the Hindu minority in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

This protest outside the Pakistani embassy is aimed at attracting the

attention of the international community towards the plight of the

Hindu minority in Pakistan, while in India Muslim women share equal

rights with Hindus. The Hindu population in Pakistan, which has come

down to below two per cent of the population, is still more than five

times the number of Hindus living here in the UK," Mr Bakshi said,

adding that these incidents in Pakistan only highlights what is a

daily occurrence for Hindus who live in Pakistan.

 

They suffer constant threats against their security, property and

lives and have to live a low profile existence.

 

Mr Bakshi also said that many Hindu temples have been desecrated,

destroyed, or converted into government offices in Pakistan.

In 1992 alone, hundreds of Hindu temples were destroyed in Pakistan

in response to communal riots in India, in which Pakistani Hindus

played no role. Despite official promises to rebuild these temples,

in many cases, little or no action has been taken to redress the

situation.

 

Illegal encroachments on Hindu temples and lands, molestation and

abduction of Hindu girls, the demand for huge ransoms in kidnapping

cases and frequent arrests of Hindus on false charges have become

commonplace in Pakistan.

 

Braving biting cold and chilly winds, Dr GL Bhan, president, Vishwa

Hindu Parishad, UK who travelled all the way from Manchester — 200

miles from London — for the rally, said that though in the past,

Hindu minorities in Pakistan have been subject to kidnappings,

killings, extortions and their shrines defiled, forced conversion of

their daughters in recent years have shaken the community.

 

He said this could well be a conspiracy to drive the small Hindu

community, numbering 2.7 million, out of a country with a population

of 140 million.

 

These forced conversions to Islam in Pakistan have rocked the

minority community to the extent that even the Human Rights

Commission of Pakistan had to express concern over the reported

incidents of missing girls of the minority Hindu community.

An HRCP release condemned this practice of kidnapping girls of

minority communities and their forcible conversion. It also condemned

the government's inaction on these issues as such practices were

against constitutional provisions.

 

British-Hindus have submitted a memorandum to Dr Maleeha Lodhi, High

Commissioner for Pakistan to the UK, appealing to her to help rectify

the humiliating and uncomfortable position minority Hindus in

Pakistan find themselves in.

 

SOURCE: The Statesman, Kolkata.

 

URL: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?

clid=4&id=129774&usrsess=1