Hindu women converting in droves

[Dan and Judy 614]

Pakistan supreme court to decide fate of Hindu woman in Muslim marriage row

Rinkle Kumari, 19, claims she was kidnapped, converted to Islam and married against her will

• • Share116
  • reddit this

• Jon Boone in Islamabad
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 March 2012 07.35 EDT
• Article history

Pakistani Hindu Rinkle Kumari's case has angered her community, who accuse Muslims of preying on Hindu girls. Photograph: Dinodia/Stock Connection/RexThe fate of a Pakistani Hindu woman who claims she was kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam and married against her will is to be decided this week, after weeks of campaigning by the country's Hindu minority.

The case of 19-year-old Rinkle Kumari has outraged Hindus from her small town in the south of the country, where community leaders accuse Muslims of preying on Hindu girls of marriageable age.

Some claim similar cases are helping to fuel a steady outflow of Pakistan's tiny Hindu community as families choose to move to Hindu-majority India instead.

In a hearing beginning on Monday, the supreme court in Islamabad will try to get to the bottom of the hotly contested versions of events.

The town's Muslims, backed by a powerful local politician, say Kumari freely converted to Islam to marry her neighbour, Naveed Shah, on 24 February. But her father, a primary school teacher, is adamant she was abducted in the middle of the night from her house in Mirpur Marthelo, in Sindh province.

"These people see beautiful young Hindu girls and chase them," said her uncle Raj Kumar. "For 15 days Naveed Shah had been shouting at Rinkle, threatening to kill her only brother."

Her case has won support from members of parliament and attracted widespread attention in the Pakistani media. According to the Frontier Post newspaper, Rinkle was seized "for reasons based in sheer lust and debauchery".

Throughout the whole saga Rinkle's voice has barely been heard, although both sides say she has made clear statements supporting their contradictory claims.

Her family says that when she first appeared at a magistrates court late last month the tearful woman made clear she had been forcibly converted and wanted to return to her parents. But the court failed to record her statement and put her in police custody after hundreds of Muslim protesters surrounded the court.

In a subsequent hearing – from which the family say they were banned – Kumari said she had freely converted.

In a sign of the enormous tensions created by the case, the Hindu minority only succeeded in forcing the authorities to open a case on the issue by staging protests, with shopkeepers striking and demonstrators blocking a highway. The intervention of the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, forced the police to act, say protesters.

Mian Mitto, the local member of parliament whom Kumari's family has accused of being intimately involved in the abduction and conversion, dismissed her initial court statement. "She may have been emotional, it is only natural to be upset after seeing her parents in court," he said.

Mitto's family control a nearby Sufi shrine which has a long history as a place where people come to convert to Islam.

In his version of events Kumari had long been in love with Shah. Speaking at his house in Islamabad, he produced telephone and SMS logs that apparently showed the pair were in regular communication, although Raj Kumar insisted the family was too poor for Rinkle to have a phone.

Whether she was abducted or went on her own volition, she arrived at the shrine late at night. Within hours she had converted to Islam and married Shah, Mitto said.

Amarnath Motumal, from the Sindh chapter of Pakistan's human rights commission, said many cases of forced conversion were covered up, but he believed there were at least 20 such incidents each month. He said: "They take them into these extremist madrassas and don't let the parents meet their families, claiming the girl does not want to meet kaffirs [unbelievers] – her own parents."

Another recent case involves a female medical student who was allegedly kidnapped on the streets of Karachi. "These people want to stoke a war between the Hindus and Muslims so that we leave the country," said Amarlal, chairman of the Progressive Minorities Commission, who uses only one name. "Local mullahs and fundamentalist people think that if they leave they can take their properties."

Only a tiny minority of Hindus live in the country after massive migration of Sikhs and Hindus out of Pakistan when the state was formed in 1947 to create a homeland for South Asia's Muslims. About 3% of the population are Hindus. Some Hindu community organisations claim that about 10 families leave Pakistan each month.

[X Factor 1,110]

It pains me to see how women are exploited by being abducted.

[luckytxn 2,263]

It pains me to see how women are exploited by being abducted.

Really. Hmmmm.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

How do you convert someone against their will?

[Karee 4,189]

How do you convert someone against their will?

Threat of violence, or actual violence.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

How do you convert someone against their will?

Did you just fall off the last box car or what?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Did you just fall off the last box car or what?

No. You can't convert someone against their will no matter how much you threaten them.

[luckytxn 2,263]

The title was very misleading. It doesn't sound like droves are converting.

[Dan and Judy 614]

No. You can't convert someone against their will no matter how much you threaten them.

It's a piece of cake to make a 19 year old girl say the necessary words through duress. While sincere belief and conviction may be absent, preventing a "true" conversion, If she admits that she said the words without sincere belief and conviction then she is probably guilty of blasphemy. Anybody know what the punishment for blasphemy is in Pakistan?

[luckytxn 2,263]

It's a piece of cake to make a 19 year old girl say the necessary words through duress. While sincere belief and conviction may be absent, preventing a "true" conversion, If she admits that she said the words without sincere belief and conviction then she is probably guilty of blasphemy. Anybody know what the punishment for blasphemy is in Pakistan?

Spanking them because they have been bad girls?

[웃 910]

No. You can't convert someone against their will no matter how much you threaten them.

The best way to convert someone is to give them a good dose of common sense!

[Love's JAA 100]

Spanking them because they have been bad girls?

Real nice! Make a joke out of the torture and murder of helpless women.

[Dan and Judy 614]

According to the information received, Naveed Shah, a member of a famous criminal group of Hassam Kalwarh, along with more than dozen persons abducted Kumari from her house on 23 February. They kidnapped her at gunpoint and took her to the resident of Mian Abdul Haq, alias Mian Mithhu, the member of the National Assembly from the ruling party, the Pakistan Peoples' Party. She was then taken to a famous Madressa at Dargah Aalia Qadria Bharchoondi Sharif where she had forced to sign the marriage certificate (Nikkah Nama) and married with Naveed Shah, a street gangster. The Madressa is famous for converting Hindu girls in the province which claims that it has the target to convert 2000 Hindus every year to Islam.

Ms. Kumari was recovered by the Police and then presented before the civil court, where she pleaded in front of the civil judge to go be allowed to return to her parents. According to law in under section 164 of Pakistan Penal Code, a statement before the magistrate, she needed to be present with the two parties in the presence of their lawyers, in the first session she informed her parents that she was not willing to marry Naveed Shah and she was pressurized to convert to Islam.

She informed them that she was abducted by Naveed Shah and other men with Hassam Kalwarh, a notorious gangster, who came through the roof of their house to kidnap her. In the year 2000, Hassam Kalwarh was arrested by the police and on the orders of the court he was paraded on a donkey through the streets after black colour was put on his face. This man is a favourite of Muslim fundamentalist groups for helping them to kidnap Hindu girls and forcing them to convert to Islam. During the court proceedings she cried out and pleaded to the civil judge that she wants to live with her parents.

Mian Abdul Haq alias Mian Mittho the member of National Assembly slapped her repeatedly infront of the judge and threatened her not to give any statement in their favour and she has become Muslim and could not go to her family back otherwise her family has to bear dire consequences. But the court was failed to get her confessional statement under section 164 and instead of sending her to her parent's house sent her to a women police station, Sukkur district.

When the police was informed that the president of Pakistan has taken notice of the incident they, in an effort to please the perpetrators, particularly the member of the National Assembly, suddenly took her from Sukkur women's' police station, Sukkur city at 2 am in the night to a far flung area, the Mathelo, 35 kilometers away from Sukkur city. Due to the depilated condition of the roads it takes more than one and half hours to reach Mathelo from Sukkur.

The next morning the lawyers and family members of Kumari came to know that she was sent to Mathelo court and then they hurriedly went there but the police had put barricaded the roads leading towards the court with oil and water tankers. The fundamentalists, who were heavily armed, however, were allowed to enter the court in hundreds. When the family members and their lawyers were able to reach the court at around 8.45 am they found there was jubilation with aerial firing by the Muslim groups after she had been declared Muslim.

The court proceeding was started at 8.15 and within no time the civil Judge announced that she has embraced Islam. Still no confessional statement had been taken under section 164 by the court. The court was full of fundamentalists and gangsters who were chanting slogans in favour of Islam. She repeatedly told the court, according to court staff, that she wanted to go to her parents but the judge declared that the home of the husband was the proper home of a newly married girl.

http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-042-2012

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

According to the information received, Naveed Shah, a member of a famous criminal group of Hassam Kalwarh, along with more than dozen persons abducted Kumari from her house on 23 February. They kidnapped her at gunpoint and took her to the resident of Mian Abdul Haq, alias Mian Mithhu, the member of the National Assembly from the ruling party, the Pakistan Peoples' Party. She was then taken to a famous Madressa at Dargah Aalia Qadria Bharchoondi Sharif where she had forced to sign the marriage certificate (Nikkah Nama) and married with Naveed Shah, a street gangster. The Madressa is famous for converting Hindu girls in the province which claims that it has the target to convert 2000 Hindus every year to Islam.

Ms. Kumari was recovered by the Police and then presented before the civil court, where she pleaded in front of the civil judge to go be allowed to return to her parents. According to law in under section 164 of Pakistan Penal Code, a statement before the magistrate, she needed to be present with the two parties in the presence of their lawyers, in the first session she informed her parents that she was not willing to marry Naveed Shah and she was pressurized to convert to Islam.

She informed them that she was abducted by Naveed Shah and other men with Hassam Kalwarh, a notorious gangster, who came through the roof of their house to kidnap her. In the year 2000, Hassam Kalwarh was arrested by the police and on the orders of the court he was paraded on a donkey through the streets after black colour was put on his face. This man is a favourite of Muslim fundamentalist groups for helping them to kidnap Hindu girls and forcing them to convert to Islam. During the court proceedings she cried out and pleaded to the civil judge that she wants to live with her parents.

Mian Abdul Haq alias Mian Mittho the member of National Assembly slapped her repeatedly infront of the judge and threatened her not to give any statement in their favour and she has become Muslim and could not go to her family back otherwise her family has to bear dire consequences. But the court was failed to get her confessional statement under section 164 and instead of sending her to her parent's house sent her to a women police station, Sukkur district.

When the police was informed that the president of Pakistan has taken notice of the incident they, in an effort to please the perpetrators, particularly the member of the National Assembly, suddenly took her from Sukkur women's' police station, Sukkur city at 2 am in the night to a far flung area, the Mathelo, 35 kilometers away from Sukkur city. Due to the depilated condition of the roads it takes more than one and half hours to reach Mathelo from Sukkur.

The next morning the lawyers and family members of Kumari came to know that she was sent to Mathelo court and then they hurriedly went there but the police had put barricaded the roads leading towards the court with oil and water tankers. The fundamentalists, who were heavily armed, however, were allowed to enter the court in hundreds. When the family members and their lawyers were able to reach the court at around 8.45 am they found there was jubilation with aerial firing by the Muslim groups after she had been declared Muslim.

The court proceeding was started at 8.15 and within no time the civil Judge announced that she has embraced Islam. Still no confessional statement had been taken under section 164 by the court. The court was full of fundamentalists and gangsters who were chanting slogans in favour of Islam. She repeatedly told the court, according to court staff, that she wanted to go to her parents but the judge declared that the home of the husband was the proper home of a newly married girl.

http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-042-2012

And that's how Muslims are made.