Atrocities against women continues in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The targeting of religious minorities, especially women, has been continuing in Pakistan recently a Hindu girl returned to her family after enduring two years of gang rape by her abductors, local media reported. The victim, 22, was abducted on November 2, 2020, by some armed men from her home in Pakistan's Sindh Province and since that, she was kept at different locations by her kidnappers and brutally raped several times every day, according to a report.

In one of the videos, the victim's father was seen cursing himself for being born as a non-Muslim in an Islamic state. According to the family, though a police report was filed with the local PS, nothing positive was done by the police to find his daughter. Meanwhile, another Hindu girl, 8, from Sindh province was found by her family on Sunday in a very critical condition in another horrific incident.

She was admitted to the Umarkot, government hospital, where doctors confirmed that she had been brutally gang-raped and stabbed in both eyes with her eyes still bleeding. Doctors said that she has a very slim chance of surviving. According to the annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, in 2021, incidents targeting Hindu women have become common in Pakistan.

In 2021, A Hindu girl from Larkana, identified as Sonika, daughter of Namo Mal Chawla, suddenly went missing in the first week of September, appearing four days later in a video uploaded on social media and disclosing that she had contracted marriage with a Muslim man, Zeeshan Ali, after converting to Islam. Her father registered a formal complaint of abduction, naming the husband as the primary suspect along with others. The police took the husband's brother into custody when they could not find Zeeshan Ali. Following her brother-in-law's arrest, Sonika appeared on social media to demand his release, sharing legal documents of her marriage and faith conversion, stating that she was an adult and had embraced Islam of her free will.

HRCP recorded 197 honour crimes in 2020 for Sindh alone, involving 79 male and 136 female victims. At least six cases of forced conversion of Hindu girls were also reported in the province. At least 115 persons committed suicide in Tharparkar in 2021, of which 68 were women. The majority of cases belonged to the Hindu community, according to HRCP.

A shocking 115 persons are reported to have committed suicide in Tharparkar in 2021, of which 68 were women. The highest number of 32 was reported from Nagarparkar followed by 26 in Islamkot, 21 in Chhachhro, 19 in Mithi, eight in Daheli, seven in Diplo and two in Kaloi. Of the total, 99 belonged to the Hindu community.