Minority leaders, parliamentarians, activists protest against forced conversions

A protest against alleged forced conversions was held outside the Karachi Press Club on Sunday and it was attended by representatives of the minority communities, parliamentarians and civil society activists.The Pakistan Hindu Youth Council, a Hindu rights body, organised the protest. The participants included the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s minority leader Sham Sundar Advani, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s leader Khatu Mal Jeewan, known civil society activist Krishan Sharma and the council’s head Vishal Anand.The protesters carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans calling for an end to alleged atrocities against the minority community in the province. They also claimed that two spiritual leaders — Mian Mithu, the Pir of Bharchundi Sharif in Ghotki district, and Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandi of the Sarhandi shrine in Umerkot district — are the main perpetrators behind the forced conversions of Hindu women and their subsequent marriages.The protesters said that they had gathered at the press club to register their protest over the alleged abduction and forced conversion of two young Hindu sisters — Reena and Raveena — from their home in Daharki on Holi.They also registered their protest against the alleged abduction and forced conversion of another girl, namely Shania, in Mirpurkhas. They demanded that the bill against forced conversion be resurrected and passed again. The bill was passed by the Sindh Assembly in 2016 but was not taken up again after the then governor returned it to the legislature without giving his assent.The rights activists and parliamentarians gathered at the protest lamented that cases of abductions, forced conversions and forced marriages of teenage Hindu girls are on the rise across the province.They said that forced conversions are too easily and too often disguised as voluntary conversions, leaving especially minor girls vulnerable. Separately, a number of Shia community members and civil society activists gathered outside the press club to demand that the government and law enforcement agencies immediately do something to recover the missing Shia youth.The Shia Missing Persons Movement organised the protest during which the participants carried placards and banners as well as portraits of the missing people, as they shouted slogans for their recovery.Rashid Rizvi Advocate, the group’s chief who led the protest, said that dozens of persons, including members of their sect, are “missing after they were picked up and taken to undisclosed locations, but the government has refused to take any responsibility for the trend”. He claimed that at least eight Shia youths from various parts of the city have been picked up by plain-clothes men from their homes in the past two days and their whereabouts are still unknown. He said Matloob Hussain Moosvi, a reporter who was picked up from his residence from the Al-Falah area, was also among them.Calling for all those who have been picked up to be presented in courts without delay, the protesters said that one of the purposes of organising the protest was to appeal to the federal and provincial governments, the judiciary and the police to fulfil their constitutional responsibilities.

from The News International - Karachi https://ift.tt/2WEL3oX