Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: December 9, 2005
The recent abduction and conversion of three
Hindu girls in Pakistan clearly shows that, despite the isolated example of
a Danish Kaneria playing for the country's cricket team, Hindus there are
a marginalised and persecuted lot stalked constantly by insecurity. The details
are shocking. The three - Reena (21), Usha (19) and Rima (17) - who lived
in Karachi's Punjab Colony along with their parents and two other siblings,
went missing from October 18, 2005.
As the local police station refused to lodge
an FIR, they approached the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Clifton, who
forced the Station House Officer to register a case. Accordingly an FIR was
recorded on October 22 and three young men of the locality were mentioned
as suspects. Almost immediately thereafter, the family began receiving threats
and, within days, it received, through courier service, three affidavits by
the three girls stating that they had converted to Islam on their free will
and wanted to live separately.
They had been, according to the affidavits,
renamed Ahsan, Anam and Nida and were living in a hostel of madarsa Taleem-ul-Quran
and were instructed by a local moulvi. That the affidavits were signed under
duress became clear when the parents, Sanno and Champa Amra, finally managed
to meet their abducted daughters following a court order on November 10 directing
the police and the administration of the madarsa to arrange a meeting.
In the presence of a dour woman, a moulvi
and several cops, which most certainly prevented the girls from speaking their
mind, the three, covered head to foot in burqa, and with only their eyes visible,
said in subdued voices that they wanted to stay where they were. The youngest
girl's eyes were bloodshot with crying.
The unfolding of events has been recalled
in some detail because it underlines two things. The first is the tragedy
of three young girls, abducted, forcibly converted and made to live in the
hostel of a madarsa - where no one knows what is being done to them - away
from their parents and siblings.
The second is the reminder they provide of
the continuing persecution of minorities - mainly Hindus, Christians and Ahmadiyyas
- in Pakistan who live hunted and terrorised lives in the shadow of the threats
of prosecution under the Blasphemy Act which carries a death penalty, desecration
of their shrines, forcible conversions and physical violence.
All civilised Governments must pressure Pakistan
to have the three girls restored to their parents, punish their abductors
and provide an environment in which the minorities can live in peace and honour.
The Government of India and the human rights organisations in this country,
which have been hyper-active in defence of minority rights and condemnation
of "communal" elements, have a bounden duty to take up the case
of the three girls and minority rights with Pervez Musharraf's regime - and
in all international fora should it prove unresponsive.
Silence and inaction on the ground that it
is Pakistan's internal matter and making an issue of it will have an adverse
bearing on India-Pakistan relations which are on the threshold of a stunning
improvement, will not wash.
If such considerations have not prevented
Islamabad from trying to internationalise the totally spurious issue of human
rights violation in Jammu & Kashmir, there is no reason why India's United
Progressive Alliance Government should not make a global issue of the case
of the three girls and persecution of minorities in Pakistan.
