Minor Hindu girl kidnapped and converted to Islam in Pakistan
Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan 
10 February, 2025
Case Summary
A 15-year-old Sindhi Hindu girl named Asha, daughter of Shankar, was kidnapped from Lyari, Pakistan. According to reports, Asha was abducted by a man named Noman, a resident of Ghulam Shah Compound, Old Kambharori. The Hindu victim's parents filed an FIR against the perpetrator, Noman; however, the police have failed to make an arrest. The FIR was filed on the 11th of February, 2025. Hindu minorities in Pakistan face persistent persecution, marked by systemic discrimination, violence, and forced conversions. Hindus, particularly women and 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 abduction of the minor victim has been added to the primary category "Predatory Proselytisation". Two subcategories have been selected for this case. The first sub-category is "Harassment, threats and 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 in discriminatory grounds, which have the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon their freedom to exercise their 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. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. The second sub-category the case is being added to is "Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination". The tertiary category selected in this sub-category 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 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 proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. In this case, the minor Hindu victim was abducted by a Muslim perpetrator. Hindus in Pakistan are a persecuted minority where members of the majority community often abduct young Hindu girls for the purpose of forced conversion to Islam. Data has revealed that Pakistani Hindus are known to be one of the most badly persecuted minority communities in the world. According to a report from the Movement for Solidarity and Peace, about 1,000 non-Muslim girls are converted to Islam each year in Pakistan. Every month, an estimated 20 or more Hindu girls are abducted and converted. However, exact figures are impossible to gather, said Amarnath Motumal, the vice chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). In such a scenario, the abduction of a minor Hindu girl follows the pattern seen in Pakistan. Minority girls are specifically targeted based on their religious identity for the purpose of conversion to Islam. Even if one is to assume that the girl could have "eloped" with the Muslim perpetrator, given the fact that she victim is a minor, she is in no position to give her consent for either the relationship or the religious conversion that follows in such cases. This case is therefore being added to the Hinduphobia Tracker.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
