Islamabad, Aug 11: A 14-year-old Hindu girl, who was kidnapped from Jacobabad city in Pakistan's southern Sindh province, has been forced to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim man, her father claimed today.
The kidnapping of Manisha Kumari on August 7 had sparked widespread concern in the minority community amidst reports of the exodus of several Hindu families from the region.
Manisha's father Rewat Mal said his daughter had telephoned him from an unknown location yesterday and said she had converted to Islam and changed her name to Mahwish.
Rewat Mal said Manisha had also told him that she had married a man named Ghulam Mustafa Channa. “She can never give up her religion. She has been coerced into doing it,” he told reporters in Jacobabad. He contended that someone had forced Manisha to phone him and inform him about the conversion.
“If such things can happen to a 14-year-old girl, how can we go on living in Pakistan? I can't show my face to anyone,” he said.
Sanjay Singh, an uncle of Manisha, said her voice had wavered while she was speaking on the telephone and it appeared that someone who was with her was coercing her. “She sounded scared on the phone. There were people around her dictating things to her, we could hear them giving her instructions,” he said.
The minorities would have no option but to move to India, Singh said.
Sources told PTI that Manisha had reportedly been taken to Sukkur after being kidnapped. She was forced to convert shortly after being kidnapped, they said.
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