Minor Hindu girl forcibly converted to Islam and married off to Muslim man in Sindh, Pakistan

Case ID : d32768a | Location : Mithi, Sindh, Pakistan | Date of Incident : Sun, 8 February, 2026

Case ID : d32768a

Mithi, Sindh, Pakistan

8 February, 2026

Minor Hindu girl forcibly converted to Islam and married off to 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 Mithi, Tharparakar district, Sindh province, Pakistan, a minor Hindu girl belonging to the Dalit community was forcibly converted to Islam and married to a Muslim man. According to media reports, the minor Hindu victim was identified as Guddi Kolhi. The victim was 13 years old. The Muslim perpetrators forcibly converted her to Islam and married her off to a Muslim man. The circumstances under which the marriage happened raised serious legal and human rights concerns. According to information shared by the victim’s family and local sources, documents issued by a so-called conversion centre linked to Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandi falsely listed the girl’s age as 19 years. This sharp discrepancy demonstrated age falsification, a tactic frequently employed in cases where forced conversions and marriages of minor Hindu girls are retroactively “legalised” through forged or manipulated records. The falsification of age was done to avoid the sections of the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act. As per the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, the minimum legal age for marriage was 18 years for both girls and boys. Any marriage involving a minor was categorised as a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment and fines not only for those who arranged the marriage, but also for clerics who solemnised it and individuals who facilitated it. This incident caused fear and distress within the local Hindu community, which viewed this as another instance of Hindu girls being targeted through forced religious conversion and marriage. This was not the first time such incidents had taken place in Pakistan, as 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 Muslim 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. This case highlights the persistent 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 ?

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 case was added to the tracker as the forced conversion of a minor Hindu girl, Guddi Kolhi, followed by her marriage to a Muslim man in Mithi, Tharparakar district, Sindh province, Pakistan, illustrated the ruthless exploitation of a vulnerable child through coercion and force. Such incidents formed part of a troubling pattern in Pakistan, where Hindu girls endured forced religious conversions and marriages. The case details demonstrated that Guddi was targeted for her Hindu faith identity, making this a clear instance of a hate crime. A key point was that the victim was a minor, aged 13 years. This negated any element of consent or voluntary change of faith. Children like Guddi, still navigating emotional and cognitive development, were especially susceptible to coercion and manipulation, rendering them easy targets for those exploiting religious vulnerabilities. The forced conversion and marriage of this Hindu child constituted a clear hate crime and violation of human rights and child protection norms. The forced conversion and subsequent marriage of Guddi showcased clear religious animosity. This act violated her autonomy and religious rights by targeting her specifically for her Hindu identity, forcibly stripping her of her faith and imposing Islam upon her. The marriage compounded this by infringing on her human rights as a Hindu minor, amounting to a religiously motivated hate crime. Documents from a conversion centre linked to Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandi falsified her age to 19 years to evade the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act. This deliberate forgery highlighted the well-calculated nature of the crime, designed to retroactively legitimise the coercion and forced marriage, thereby increasing the severity of the hate crime. Such incidents were not isolated but formed part of a persistent and deeply concerning pattern in Pakistan, where Hindu minorities, particularly young Hindu girls like Guddi, were repeatedly targeted through forced religious conversions and marriages to Muslim men. This ongoing trend highlighted the systemic discrimination and violence faced by the Hindu community in Pakistan. Since the country's inception, the Hindu minority had endured sustained harassment, marginalisation, and various forms of abuse. As the motive behind the crime was rooted in religious animosity towards Hindus, it is being categorised as a hate crime and included in the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of an incident based on when the crime occurred, rather than when it was subsequently reported in social or mainstream media. In this case, no specific information was available regarding the exact date of the abduction or when the victim’s ordeal began. Therefore, 9 February 2026, the date on which the case was first reported by the media, was used as the indicative date of the incident.