Minor Hindu girl abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, name changed and married to a Muslim man in Sindh, Pakistan

Case ID : 30a8dbe | Location : Tando Muhammad Khan, Sindh, Pakistan | Date of Incident : Fri, 22 May, 2026

Case ID : 30a8dbe

Tando Muhammad Khan, Sindh, Pakistan

22 May, 2026

Minor Hindu girl abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, name changed and married to a Muslim man in Sindh, Pakistan

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Conversion of minor

Case Summary

In District Tando Muhammad Khan, Sindh, Pakistan, a minor Hindu girl named Maya Kohli was abducted from her home, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to a Muslim man. The conversion was performed by Peer Agha Jaan Sarhandi at the Dargah Gulzar-e-Khalil in Samaro, and the nikah was solemnised in the Mirpurkhas court with her name changed to Muskhan. The victim, Maya Kohli, a minor Hindu girl, the daughter of Bagho Kohli and a resident of village Haji Muhammad Salah Nizamani in District Tando Muhammad Khan, Sindh, Pakistan, was abducted from her home and made to travel approximately 95 kilometres to Samaro, where she was taken to the Dargah Gulzar-e-Khalil, a Sufi shrine. At the shrine, Peer Agha Jaan Sarhandi performed her forced conversion to Islam. Following the conversion, Maya married Abid Ali, the son of Muhammad Ramzan Sand. The nikah was solemnised at the Mirpurkhas court. A conversion certificate was issued in Maya's new Muslim name, Muskhan. After the abduction, Maya's parents contacted the police and sought assistance in recovering their daughter. Despite their efforts, the police did not register a First Information Report (FIR). The family was left without legal recourse and described their situation as one of distress and powerlessness. Recently, video footage of Maya's conversion circulated on social media. In the footage, the girl was asked several questions, including whether she had been abducted and whether she had come of her own will, to which she fearfully nodded and replied in the negative. When asked her age, she reluctantly stated that she is 16. Immediately after she mentions her age, a brief exchange takes place in the video between her and the peer conducting her religious conversion, parts of which were slightly inaudible. Referring to this portion of the footage, Hindu activist Shiva Kachhi, who first drew public attention to the case by sharing the video on X, stated that the cleric present instructed the girl not to publicly say that she was 16 years old and instead tell others that she was 18 or 19. This claim has attracted particular attention because it raises questions about the circumstances surrounding the conversion, the cleric's deliberate attempt to misrepresent her true age and circumvent child protection concerns. Hindu minority rights organisations in Pakistan condemned the abduction and forced conversion. Human rights attorney Shiva Kachhi stated that forced conversions and marriages of minor girls from minority communities constituted a flagrant violation of human rights and religious freedom. The attorney called for concrete action by the authorities and demanded equal protection for members of minority communities. Activists further called for the Hindu community to collectively raise the issue through national and international media to pressure the government to intervene and deliver justice. This case was not an isolated occurrence. The Hinduphobia Tracker had previously documented multiple similar cases of minor Hindu girls subjected to abduction, forced conversion to Islam, and forced marriage in Pakistan. On 28th February 2026, in Mirpurkhas, Sindh, a 14-year-old minor Dalit Hindu girl named Anbo Kolhi was abducted from Landi near Dodo Khan Laghari in the Landhi area approximately one month prior to the case becoming publicly known. Following her abduction, she was forcibly converted and married to a Muslim man. The incident came to light when her mother, Bhuro Kolhi, approached the Head Office of Pakistan Darawar Ittehad, a minority rights organisation, seeking justice. On 4th April 2026, in Sindh, a nine-year-old Hindu girl named Reshma was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to a 45-year-old Muslim man identified as Wazir Hussain. She was taken to a Sufi Dargah for her conversion. The case came to public attention when images of the child in wedding attire went viral. Human rights activists demanded the immediate annulment of the marriage and the safe return of the child, citing violations of child protection laws and fundamental human rights. Further in Mirpur Khas, Sindh, a minor Hindu girl named Maria, daughter of Shamon Bheel of Village Usman Shah Hadi in Tando Allahyar, was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam. She was married to her Muslim abductor, Naeem Memon Rajput, aged twenty-nine, and her name was changed to Naila Sheikh. Her family stated that the conversion and marriage took place without consent and under coercion. In another case in Umerkot, Sindh, in September 2025, a minor Hindu girl named Shardha Oad was abducted and subjected to forced religious conversion and marriage by a Muslim man named Riaz Ali and his accomplices. The case came to light after her widowed mother, Kamla Oad, approached the Women's Police Station in Umerkot seeking justice. In another case, in Mirpur Khas, Sindh, a minor Hindu girl named Aneeta Thakur was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to a Muslim man named Abdul Rehman Mallah.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds, which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision, etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. The other subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary category under it is: 'Conversion of minor' Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting, regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to the existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This incident has been included in the tracker because it has multiple religious markers. Here, a minor Hindu girl was separated from her family, converted to Islam, and married to a Muslim man through a process that included coercion, manipulation, and the absence of meaningful consent. The sequence of events did not involve a voluntary change of faith arising from independent religious conviction. Instead, it involved the removal of a Hindu minor from her family environment, harassment and coercion that led to her conversion, the changing of her name, and a subsequent nikah. The clearest religious marker in this case is that the victim's Hindu identity was not merely incidental to the events but was actively replaced through a formal religious process. Maya Kohli was taken to a shrine where a cleric converted her to Islam and issued a conversion certificate in her new Muslim name, Muskhan. The conversion was then followed by marriage. This sequence demonstrates that abandoning her existing Hindu identity and adopting an Islamic one was central to what occurred. The victim's age is a critical factor. Maya stated in the video that she was 16 years old. Minors are not fully developed cognitively, emotionally, or psychologically and are therefore far more vulnerable to influence, pressure, intimidation, and manipulation by adults. They lack the maturity and life experience necessary to fully understand the lifelong implications of religious conversion and marriage. Furthermore, even if the cleric was attempting to put words into the victim's mouth and create the impression that she had converted of her own free will, it is important to recognise that when the victim is a minor, the "consent" to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult is redundant- addressed by POCSO. Thus, it is evident that a Hindu minor was converted against his will in this case, as opposed to it being voluntary. Equally concerning is the interaction captured in the conversion video. After Maya stated that she was 16 years old, a brief exchange took place between her and the cleric conducting the conversion. According to Hindu activist Shiva Kachhi, who publicised the video, the cleric instructed her not to publicly state that she was 16 and instead say that she was 18 or 19. This suggests an awareness that her status as a minor posed a significant obstacle to the legitimacy of the conversion and marriage. Rather than ensuring that her age was properly acknowledged and safeguarded, the instructions were intended to overcome scrutiny. It is important to mention here that this is not an isolated incident but mirrors a recurring pattern documented in Sindh, where minor Hindu girls have repeatedly been removed from their families, converted to Islam, married shortly thereafter, and presented as willing participants despite their age and the objections of their families. The cases of Anbo Kolhi, Reshma, Maria, Shardha Oad, and Aneeta Thakur and the over 64 cases documented by Hinduphobia Tracker, mostly display the same features. The repetition of this pattern across multiple districts and over an extended period strengthens concerns that these incidents are not isolated but form part of a broader phenomenon disproportionately affecting Hindu girls from minority communities. Viewed in its entirety, the victim's status as a minor, her removal from her family environment, the formal conversion process, the change of religious identity, the questions surrounding her age, the reported attempt to conceal that age, and the existence of a wider pattern of similar cases collectively indicate that this was not a straightforward exercise of religious freedom. Rather, the facts point towards a process in which a Hindu minor's ability to freely choose was severely compromised while her religious identity was systematically replaced. Since the underlying offence in this case is against a minor girl of a specific faith and involves subtle tactics of indoctrination, which obviously stems from a bias against the Hindu faith, this case has been documented as a hate crime.