Hindu minor girl abducted, kept chained in captivity, gang raped, forcibly converted and married to an elderly Muslim man in Pakistan

Case ID : 30a9153 | Location : Umarkot, Sindh, Pakistan | Date of Incident : Sun, 23 April, 2023

Case ID : 30a9153

Umarkot, Sindh, Pakistan

23 April, 2023

Hindu minor girl abducted, kept chained in captivity, gang raped, forcibly converted and married to an elderly Muslim man in Pakistan

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

A 14-year-old Hindu girl named Gudi Kolhi from Bakhu village, Tharparkar, was abducted by a married Muslim man, Rustam Junejo (father of 6-7 children) from Harpar village. While she was out for work in Jhang, Rustam kidnapped her. He forcibly performed nikah with her in a madarsa near Mirpurkhas, and then took her to his village, where he has kept her chained and imprisoned and gangraped by his family members. The victim's father begged Rustam to return his daughter, saying he is too poor to file a case and won’t complain. Rustam refused. When the father pleaded to see her once, he found his daughter chained. After she returned, she approached a police station in Chelhar, Tharparkar district, Sindh. Gudi said that she was forcibly converted to Islam, and she does not know how to recite the kalma (Islamic profession of faith) or offer namaz, as she is a Hindu. “I was forcefully converted to Islam,” she stated. Gudi Kolhi's case is not an isolated case but only one of the several cases where Hindu women and minor girls have been abducted and forcibly converted in Pakistan. The Hinduphobia Tracker had previously documented numerous similar cases. For example, in Mirpur Khas, Sindh, a minor Hindu girl named Maria, daughter of Shamon Bheel of Village Usman Shah Hadi, Tando Allahyar, was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam. She was married to her abductor, Naeem Memon Rajput, aged twenty-nine, and her name was changed to Naila Sheikh. Her family stated that the conversion and marriage were carried out without consent and under coercion. In September 2025, in Umerkot, Sindh, 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 September 2025, in Mirpur Khas, Sindh, a minor Hindu girl named Aneeta Thakur was abducted and subjected to forced religious conversion and marriage to a Muslim man named Abdul Rehman Mallah. In March 2026, in Dhilyar, Khipro, Sindh province, Pakistan, a Hindu woman and her minor daughter were abducted at gunpoint, sexually abused and forcibly converted to Islam by armed Muslim men. The victims were Pari, aged around 35 years, and her daughter Sapna, aged approximately 10 years. This current case highlights the persecution faced by the Hindu minorities in Pakistan, marked by systemic discrimination, violence, and forced conversions. Hindu women, particularly young girls, are often abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off to Muslim men with little to no legal recourse. Temples are frequently vandalised or destroyed, and Hindu communities are subjected to social and economic marginalisation. Blasphemy laws are disproportionately used against Hindus, leading to false accusations and severe punishments. Many Hindu families are forced to flee their homes due to religious intolerance, living in constant fear of attacks. This sustained persecution highlights the dire conditions for Hindus in Pakistan, where their religious identity makes them targets of oppression.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category for this case is "Predatory Proselytisation". The sub-category here 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. This case constitutes a religiously motivated hate crime because the victim was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, subjected to sustained sexual and physical abuse, and pressured to abandon her Hindu identity. The violence inflicted upon her was not limited to physical harm. It was accompanied by efforts to erase her religious identity and replace it with a different one. A central feature of the incident is the forced conversion itself. The victim was taken from her family, converted to Islam against her wishes, and married to her abductor. Her own statement after escaping is particularly significant. Despite the conversion that was imposed upon her, she stated that she did not know how to recite the Kalma or offer Namaz because she remained a Hindu. This statement highlights the absence of any genuine change of faith and demonstrates that the conversion was imposed upon her rather than arising from personal conviction or free choice. The coercive nature of the conversion is further evident from the treatment she endured during captivity. The victim was kept imprisoned for an extended period and subjected to repeated sexual violence. Such abuse served not only to inflict suffering but also to break her will, destroy her ability to resist, and make her more vulnerable to control. When a victim is isolated from her family, deprived of her freedom, and subjected to sustained physical and sexual abuse, any subsequent religious conversion cannot be viewed as the product of free and informed choice. The reported compulsion to adopt Islamic religious practices is another important indicator of religious targeting. Efforts to force a Hindu girl to recite the Kalma, offer Namaz, and live according to a religious identity she did not choose demonstrate that the objective extended beyond controlling the victim physically. The aim was to transform her religious identity and sever her connection with her Hindu faith. Such acts directly interfere with an individual's freedom of conscience and right to practise and retain their religion. The victim's Hindu identity was therefore not incidental to the offence. It was precisely her existing faith that became the target of coercive efforts. The abduction, forced conversion, forced marriage, religious indoctrination, imprisonment, and sexual violence formed part of a single pattern of conduct directed at stripping the victim of her Hindu identity and compelling her to adopt another religion. The broader context is also relevant. In Pakistan, particularly in Sindh, numerous cases have been documented in which Hindu girls have been abducted, converted to Islam, and married to Muslim men against their wishes. Human rights organisations and minority rights groups have repeatedly highlighted the vulnerability of Hindu girls to such practices. The circumstances of this case closely mirror those documented patterns, where religious conversion is accompanied by coercion, isolation, and abuse. The violence, deception, or humiliation inflicted in such cases is not random, but part of a broader ideological hostility toward Hinduism and its symbols, practices, and adherents. Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. This mindset does not merely tolerate the existence of another faith but seeks its erasure or assimilation. As a result, Hindus are often targeted not because of who they are as individuals, but because of their religious identity. Here, too, the predatory actions stemmed from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith, which is why this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime.