Atrocities on minorities in Pakistan, abduction of another Sikh girl in Punjab

Islamabad, Sunday 20 September 2020

A 22-year-old Sikh girl has gone missing in Pakistan's Punjab province. Police have registered a case against the unidentified kidnapper. According to a media report, the incident took place recently in Hasanabad town of Atak district. The famous Sikh shrine Gurudwara Panja Sahib is located in this city.

According to the Dawn newspaper, the young woman went out to throw rubbish outside her house, but did not return. Her father runs a shop in Hassan Abdal. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. Sub-divisional police officer Raja Fayyaz-ul-Hasan was quoted as saying that the Hassanabad police had registered a case against the unidentified kidnapper under section 365B of the Pakistan Penal Code (including kidnapping for marriage) on the basis of a complaint lodged by the girl's father.

Police are searching for the missing girl, the official said. District police spokesperson Tahir Iqbal said a case was registered against the unidentified kidnapper as soon as the girl's father lodged a complaint. The day the girl went missing, the same day he texted her father on WhatsApp that he had married of his own free will and converted to Islam, said Hassan, a sub-divisional police officer.

He said several police teams were searching for the girl so that she could be produced in court and a statement recorded. Sardar Amir Singh, general secretary of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, confirmed that the girl had gone missing from a house near Gurdwara Panja Sahib.

Singh said the girl's father and uncle had met Religious Affairs Minister Noor-ul-Haq Qadri on Friday and informed him of the girl's disappearance. In Pakistan, forced conversions and marriages of non-Muslim girls continue to occur, but most of them are from Sindh province.