A 14-year-old girl from the minority Hindu community was abducted from Pakistan’s Sindh province, making it the fourth incident in the past 15 days.
According to local media reports, Chandra Mehraj was kidnapped from Fateh Chowk area of Hyderabad while she was returning home.
Suspecting it to be a case of forced conversion, the parents have lodged a police complaint.
This comes days after the abduction of three Hindu women who were then converted to Islam in the province.
A 14-year-old girl named Meena Meghwar was abducted from Nasarpur area on September 24, while another one was kidnapped in Mirpurkhas town while returning home.
Muslims make up 97 per cent of Pakistan’s population while Hindus are around only 2 per cent, in which close to 90 per cent of them reside in Sindh province bordering Hindu-majority neighbour India.
On average, nearly 1,000 minority girls are abducted and forcefully converted to Islam, claim rights groups, adding that some victims are as young as 12.
There have been several reports of forced conversions, especially of minority Hindu girls, but the governments and politicians in Pakistan have remained silent and done little to address the issue.
Pakistan’s parliamentary committee had rejected a bill against forced conversions in October last year, with the religious affairs minister Noor-ul-Haq Qadri at that time saying the environment was not favourable to bring a law against religious conversions.
He even went on to claim that a law against forcible conversions could disturb peace in the country and make minorities more vulnerable.
In 2016, Sindh province passed a law declaring forced conversion a punishable offence, but the region’s governor refused to ratify the legislation.