ISLAMABAD: A Hindu girl from Punjab province was kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam and is currently being held in a madrassa, leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney said today.
Burney said his rights organisation, the Ansar Burney Trust International, had learnt that 15-year-old Gajri, the daughter of Mengha Ram, was abducted by a Muslim neighbour from her home at Katchi Mandi, Liaquatpur, in Rahim Yar Khan district on December 21, 2009.
Gajri's parents later found out that she was being held captive in a madrassa or seminary in southern Punjab and that she had been married and converted to Islam, Burney said.
The local administration is "refusing to respond to the abduction" of the girl, who is not being allowed to leave the madrassa or to speak to her parents, he told PTI.
Burney, a former human rights minister, condemned the forceful conversion of the Hindu girl and demanded her immediate release.
"Pakistan is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which oblige authorities to protect religious minorities under international law," he said.
According to Ansar Burney Trust, on 21 December 2009 Gajri disappeared from the home of her Hindu parents in in southern Punjab.
On December 26 last year, the local police station in Gajri’s hometown received a letter with an affidavit from madrassa that said she had "embraced Islam and had married her neighbour Mohammad Salim", Burney said.
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4:30 AM
Moderate Islamist here
