The Islamabad High Court yesterday (2 April) set up an independent commission made up of five members in order to investigate the kidnapping, forced conversion to Islam, and marriage of two minor Hindu sisters in Ghotki, Sindh, reports The Tribune.
The issue had caused massive protests by the country’s Hindu minority, who demanded justice and swift action.
The court in this matter was acting in response to a plea which was filed naming the two kidnapped girls as well as their supposed ‘husbands’, Safdar Ali and Barkat Ali, as petitioners. Seeking protection, the petition contends that the conversion of the girls was consensual.
Responding to this, the counsel representing the girls’ parents, however argued that it was a case of forced conversion. The girls’ father has also submitted before the same high court that a medical board examine the girls to determine their true ages, and also test whether the girls had developed Stockholm Syndrome.
The chief justice has accepted the father’s plea about the constitution of a medical board, and has directed the formation of the same.
The chief justice also took note of the rise in the number of forced conversion cases in the district of Ghotki, stating during the hearing, “Why are such incidents repeatedly being reported from one district of Sindh province?”
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