Karachi, Jan 1: A teenage Hindu girl in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi was allegedly forcibly converted to Islam and married off to a Muslim man, prompting her family to lodge a police complaint.
The case of the girl identified as Bharti, who has been renamed Ayesha following her conversion, is the 18th instance of forced conversions and marriages in the Lyari area of Karachi, The Express Tribune reported today.
The family of the girl alleged that she was forcibly converted to Islam and married off to a Muslim man.
They filed an FIR at Baghdadi police station and a local court is now hearing her case.
During an appearance in court yesterday, she was clad in a black 'abaya' and barely looked at her parents when she saw them, the daily reported.
"She is being pressurised to say that she converted because of her own free will - else we would be harmed," said her father, Narain Das.
Bharti's mother, a cardiac patient, was upset that she did not even glance at her.
"She is my only daughter. She does not want to meet me or talk to me. I gave birth to her and raised her," she said.
Das brought a copy of the National Database and Registration Authority's record, which states that his daughter is 15 years old.
However, certificates of her conversion to Islam and her marriage claim she is 18.
"The marriage documents have tampered with her age. She is not of the age to get married," said Das.
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