Protests held outside Karachi Press Club to seek justice for Mehak Kumari

Members of the civil society and lawyers held a protest outside the Karachi press club here on Saturday to seek justice for Mehak Kumari, a minor Hindu girl who was forcibly converted to Islam and married to a Muslim man.

The protest was held under the aegis of Lalkar Social Forum.

Mehak was abducted by a middle-aged man, identified as Ali Raza, from the Jacobabad district of Sindh province on January 15.

The girl, in her statement, said that she was forced to accept Islam, which further caused a widespread furore among the Islamic fanatics.

Some Pakistani clerics even demanded a death sentence for the minor girl after she retracted her previous statement in the court, where she said that she had accepted Islam of her own free will.

The clerics blamed the 14-year old of 'murtad,' or an act of Apostasy, and accused her of insulting Islam.

Meanwhile, the court which is yet to announce the verdict has sent Kumari to a local Dar-ul-Aman in Larkana district of Sindh for eleven days.

The counsel representing the parents of Mehak, who are also the complainants in the case, informed that the court wanted to have a thorough investigation into the case and didn't want to rush the judgment under any pressure.

The abduction and forceful conversion of Hindu and Christian girls is widespread in Pakistan. Such incidents have sparked widespread criticism as many victim families are forced the migration in foreign countries, including India.

While the cases of forceful conversions have always existed in Pakistan, a significant spike has been registered lately. The fundamentalists who hold great sway in the country have been pushing for such practices and have been encouraging youth into doing so.

While Prime Minister Imran Khan has presented several narratives about the condition of minorities in Pakistan, a perennially unsafe and scared minority in Pakistan is a harsh reality.

This is pertinent to mention here that India brought in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the month of December last year to provide citizenship to persecuted minorities from three of its neighbouring countries including Pakistan.