Forced conversions hike Pakistan minorities’ fears

The Muslim Times Editor for Pakistan

Credit:Timesunion.com 

KATHY GANNON, Associated Press
 Updated 12:19 p.m., Thursday, March 29, 2012

In photo taken Sunday, March 11, 2012 A Pakistani Christian girl plays with a balloon next to a wall with biblical paintings at the Christian colony in the center of Islamabad, Pakistan. Roughly five percent of Pakistan's 180 million people belong to minority religions, which include Hindu, Christian, Shiite Muslims and Ahmedis, according to the CIA World Factbook. Photo: Anja Niedringhaus / AP

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — It was  barely 4 a.m. when 19-year-old Rinkal  Kumari disappeared from her home in a small village in Pakistan’s southern  Sindh province. When her parents awoke they found only her slippers and a scarf  outside the door.

A few hours later her father got  a call telling him his daughter, a Hindu, had converted to Islam to marry a  Muslim boy.

Only days later, Seema  Bibi, a Christian woman in the province of Punjab, was kidnapped along with  her four children after her husband couldn’t repay a loan to a large landlord.  Within hours, her husband was told his wife had converted to Islam and wouldn’t  be coming home. Seema Bibi escaped, fled the village and has gone underground  with her husband and children.

Hindu and Christian  representatives say forced conversions to Islam have become the latest weapon of  Islamic extremists in what they call a growing campaign against Pakistan’s  religious minorities, on top of assassinations and mob intimidation of houses of  worship. The groups are increasingly wondering if they still have a place  in Pakistan.

“It is a conspiracy that Hindus  and Christians and other minorities should leave Pakistan,” says Amar  Lal, the lawyer representing Kumari in the Supreme  Court. “As a minority, we feel more and more insecure. It is getting worse  day by day.”

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Forced-conversions-hike-Pakistan-minorities-fears-3437878.php#ixzz1qbk0yady

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Forced-conversions-hike-Pakistan-minorities-fears-3437878.php#ixzz1qbiMVlDf

Categories: Asia, Pakistan

1 reply

  1. Very sad unless Pakistan is for Pakistanis only and not sunnistan of Sunnis who are militant now ad days no Pakistanis is safe from them the army should do once and last time to abolish the constitution and declare Pakistan a republic of Pakistan a secular state where all Pakistanis feel pride without any fear and oppression

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