Hindu girl shot in Pakistan: Amid soaring atrocities against minority communities in Pakistan, another case of brutality emerged where a young girl was shot in broad daylight on Saturday. According to media reports, some unidentified gunmen attacked the young girl came when she was travelling from Kashmore to Kanthkot in a car on Saturday. The girl has been identified as Sarika, the daughter of Vasudeva.
Currently, the victim is under medical supervision, where her condition is reportedly critical. Some media reports also claimed that the car in which she was travelling catch fire following the attack. On social media platforms, several videos and photos of the victim, wherein she was seen screaming in pain due to severe bullet injuries. As of now, the authorities haven't briefed the media about the incident and any details about the arrest of the gunmen are yet to be known.
Second such attack in the last two weeks
Notably, this was the second such attack in less than two weeks. Earlier on December 29, a 40-year-old Bheel woman reportedly gang-raped and brutally murdered in Sindh province. According to Krishna Kumari, whose Twitter handle describes her as a Senator of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) From Tharparkar Sindh, the woman was identified as Daya Bheel (40). Kumari claimed that the woman was a widow and her body was found in a very vicious state. She claimed that the body of the victim was cut into several pieces, adding the accused had removed the flesh of the whole head.
Women from minorities live in fear as forced conversion, and marriages continue in Pakistan
According to a report by the International Forum for Rights and Society (IFFRAS), the Muslim-dominated nation has increased forced conversions and marriages in the past few years. The report said that the incident of brutality has put the Hindu and Christian families in constant fear of their daughters being snatched away.
The report entitled "Conversion Without Consent" talks about an increase in violence against non-Muslim women while the state remains indifferent and the judicial system denies timely justice in most cases. The report examined 100 reported cases involving abductions, forced faith conversions, and forced and child marriage of girls and women from the Christian community across Pakistan, as per the IFFRAS report. The highest number of such cases are seen in the Punjab province with 86 per cent, 11 per cent in Sindh, 2 per cent in Islamabad, 1 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and none in Baluchistan.
Strong correlation between reports of forced conversion and child marriage
According to the Voice of Justice, many cases are reported in Pakistan in which predominantly juvenile girls from religious minority communities are kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off to Muslim men, usually the very same perpetrators of their abductions. The report stated that there is a strong correlation between reports of forced conversion and child marriage. "The perpetrators mostly manipulate the law and justice system to get away with their crimes due to the absence of legislation which deals with forced faith conversions, and the lack of enforcement of existing domestic law; this remains a key impediment in preventing such harmful and inhumane practices," the report said.
