Lala Chaman Lal
I am a passionate human rights advocate working to protect and empower marginalized communities.
Imagine breathing on a land whose founder’s vision for a secular country stated strongly in his words as,
“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to any place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed— that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
Just a few days before the birth of Pakistan, the words were said on 11th Of August 1947, by the Founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Yet Today, if you ask any Hindu or A Christian, not an adult but a mere minor, that if Pakistan truly is what the father of the nation promised, they may fall silent trying to avoid the question altogether. Because in their very core they feel this pain and fear through which the less populated religion and sectors of this nation go through almost every single day.
For many Hindu families, specially in Sindh Freedom is not a choice, but a risk. This risk which turned into painful reality for a Sindhi Hindu Family on 19th June 2025, Four children of a same family, three girls Disha (15), Diya (19), Jiya (21), and cousin Ganesh were forcefully abducted by armed men, not from any educational institution or roaming on the streets, but from their very shelter, their home. The main suspect behind this inhumane act was none other than the their computer teacher, Farhan Khaskheli which was being celebrated as a hero by extremists of the community and blind followers While the family died a million deaths in the shivering pain of losing their blood in front of their eyes.
Amidst rising tensions in the Hindu Community and the region, SSP Sanghar visited the local Dharamshala and promised a speedy recovery. But what happened afterwards was nothing new but a well-practiced pattern among the conversion criminals in Sindh from nearly three decades. The Children were found 230kms from their hometown at Nazimabad Police Station, Karachi, where instead of being rescued by law police officials recorded their statements as they had “Willingly converted” to Islam.
Following a police raid on a Karachi-based trust, Gosha-e-Aafiat, all four children were taken into custody. The next day, they were produced before the court. In a move that felt more like damage control than justice, the two minors, Disha and Ganesh, were returned to their family but only after the court demanded a Rs 10 million personal bond per child, to “protect them from external influence” a demand which placed immense emotional and financial strain on the grieving parents . The two adult sisters, Diya and Jiya, were sent to a government-designated safe house in Karachi. But these so-called shelters are far from secure. In many reported cases, the very perpetrators or their affiliates are allowed to meet and influence the girls, while their own families are denied any access, creating an environment of continued coercion and assault behind closed doors.
This method has become a playbook for these animals, kidnap a girl, isolate her from the family, assault her, or maybe rape her, produce videos under the labels of ‘confession’, suddenly she has a new name and is declared married with full support from religious institutions and law enforcement agencies.
The most disturbing part, the same law enforcement agencies meant to protect against such incidents act as silent enablers for such heinous crime. This raises a very serious and uncomfortable question, “Is the Law protecting the victims or partnering with the culprits.”
What happened to Disha, Diya, Jiya, and Ganesh is not an isolated tragedy, it reflects to a systemic and ideologically driven pattern of abuse against non-Muslims in Pakistan. From abduction to conversion followed by questionable legal proceedings, the Law and relevant authorities do nothing but act as a puppet for Muslim Extremists and those community culprits.
Examples of Such Legal Failure are
Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act: This Bill exist merely as name while the implementation is nonexistent and remains questionable.
Anti-Forced Conversion Bills: Though proposed multiple times this bill has been rejected and ignored due to pressure from religious lobbies.
In many of these cases, madrasa-issued age certificates override official government documents like NADRA birth certificates or school records, falsely declaring minors as adults. This legal manipulation allows illegal marriages and conversions to proceed with unaccountability.
These Incidents raise a very alarming notion that if being a Hindu or Christian in Pakistan a crime or if there is a hidden law that only Certain Muslims are allowed to Breathe in this air?
What happened in Shahdadpur is not a work of few working under shadows but a symptom of a bigger, state-supported structure which raises troubling questions:
- Which law empowers madrasas or religious shrines to determine a child’s age?
- Why their documents are prioritized over official government IDs?
- Why are perpetrators—often known and powerful religious figures with political connections—never prosecuted?
The issue often blinded in Pakistan has gained international value and concern in the past decade
📌 “No Consent, No Childhood: Forced Conversions and the Collapse of Minority Rights in Pakistan” — Global Forum on Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (GFoD), June 2025:
“The Shahdadpur case is emblematic of a broader, systemic practice where minority children—especially Hindu girls—are abducted, coerced into conversion, and absorbed into a parallel legal system that overrides constitutional protections…”
globalforumcdwd.org
📌 “Pakistan: UN experts urge action on coerced religious conversions” — UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), January 16, 2023:
“We are deeply troubled by reports of young Christian and Hindu girls being abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married to Muslim men…”
timesofindia.indiatimes.com+14ohchr.org+14en.wikipedia.org+14ohchr.org
📌 “Pakistan: UN experts alarmed by lack of protection for minority girls” —
OHCHR, April 2024:
“Christian and Hindu girls remain particularly vulnerable to forced religious conversion, abduction, trafficking, child, early and forced marriage…” ohchr.org+1idsn.org+1
These are not isolated observations—they reflect a pattern that the world sees clearly, even when the state chooses to turn a blind eye.
