re-conversion in pakistan

Islamabad. Another case of forced conversion has come to the fore in Pakistan. A minor Catholic girl was abducted and forced to marry a 60-year-old Muslim man, Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious freedom and human rights, reported. Massimo Introvigne said in his report that Sitara Arif was abducted on 15 December and it took two months to persuade the police to investigate the matter.

Sitara’s father, Arif Gill, allowed her to work as a domestic help for Naila Ambrin, a Muslim principal of a public school in Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan. Arif was physically challenged and unable to support his family, which was in dire need of money, so he decided to let Sitara work for a Muslim woman.

Stories of girls from religious minorities being forcibly converted to Islam and married off to Muslim men are constantly reported in Pakistani and international media, Introvigne said.

60 years old man married a minor
This turned out to be true in Sitara Arif’s case when Ambreen’s 60-year-old husband Rana Tyab saw the beautiful Sitara and decided to make her his second wife, reports Bitter Winter.

As is common in such cases, after raping a girl, marriage is the only way to save her from dishonour. However, it is not clear in the case of Sitara. She did not return home from work on 15 December and her family later learned that she had converted to Islam and married Rana Tayyab.

FIR registered after pleading
Sitara’s father and mother started pleading with the police for investigation, but they were not listened to and were also threatened. It was only this month, when the family approached Akmal Bhatti, a well-known lawyer and president of Minorities Alliance Pakistan, that the police finally registered an FIR and promised to investigate, Bitter Winter reported.

Following Bhatti’s intervention, police officers visited Naila Ambrin’s residence, but neither her husband nor Sitara were at home. However, the woman showed the police a nikah, an Islamic marriage certificate, and confirmed that Rana Tyab had accepted Sitara as his second wife. Marrying a minor is now illegal in Pakistan, but Ambrin told police she believed Sitara to be 18.