MIRPURKHAS: Sixteen-year-old Sita was picking cotton in the fields of Darshi Kohli near Samaro, Sindh. Like many other Hindus in rural Pakistan, she along with her parents worked on land owned by a Muslim family. Her family has been working as farmers for generations.

Out of nowhere, a group of armed men stormed towards the family. Two men held down Sita’s mother, Lakshmi, and her father, while a few others forcefully took Sita with them. Reliving that dreadful day two years later, Lakshmi says, “They belonged to the Khashkheli tribe from a nearby village” — the same tribe that owns the land on which she and her family continue to work. “We could not stop them and had to watch our daughter being taken away right in front of us.”

Sita’s parents rushed to the police and managed to get a kidnapping case registered. Finally, one day, they got a phone call from their daughter. A frantic Sita told them that she had escaped, instructing them about where to pick her up.

The family breathed a sigh of relief. The worst, they wrongly thought, was over.

Subsequently, the case of Sita’s kidnapping was presented in court. Over the next 40 days they took her twice for court sessions in Umerkot. After the first hearing, while members of the abductor’s family were also present in the court, Sita’s family was approached by an intermediary from the Khashkheli family who threatened them that they had better drop the charges. Determined to pursue the case, Sita’s family did not back off.

After the second hearing, Sita, her brother and uncle were riding back home in a rickshaw when masked armed men attacked them. “They started firing,” says Lakshmi. Her son was shot in the arm and her husband’s younger brother was shot in the shoulder. The men grabbed Sita even as she screamed, tied a cloth over her face and took her away a second time.

The parents were back to square one. They filed another case of kidnapping and rape with the police. Soon enough, they found themselves back in court. Sita was present for the hearing this time around too, but she was with the Khashkeli men instead of her family. The men had a clear message for Lakshmi. “Your daughter has converted to Islam and is married in the family,” she was told.

Just outside the court premises, with her kidnappers standing by her, Sita asked her mother to drop the case and forget about her. Lakshmi saw the helplessness on her daughter’s face: clearly, Sita did not want her family to continue struggling. Lakshmi and her husband have four younger daughters and three sons. Defeated, and realising the gravity of the threat, they stepped back.

They have not heard from Sita ever since.

With despair and pain in her eyes, Lakshmi carries out her everyday chores. “I feel so lost,” she says. “Sometimes I feel I have lost my mind. Now, we have to protect our other girls and we want to be left alone.”

Other families in Darshi Kohli and Hindu communities living nearby are similarly terrified. No one wants to discuss the incident. Lakshmi’s relatives encourage her not to speak to activists and journalists. They are worried for the safety of the rest of the girls. Lakshmi and her husband, like many other families in the village, are considering migrating to India.

“It is so unfortunate that our Hindus are leaving Pakistan and are forced to take refuge in India,” says Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a member of the National Assembly, associated with PML-N. “There is lack of political will in Pakistan and especially in Sindh to pass the bill on forced conversions. There are pressures from religious groups. Hindu families are vulnerable and desperate. They are no longer able to protect their daughters and the way out for them is to migrate to India.”

“The feudals are influential people and they are crushing and exploiting the Hindus who are poor and work as farmers on their lands,” says Nawal Rai, a social activist in Umerkot who is himself Hindu. “They live under so much fear that for the last five years, Hindus from here have started migrating to India or getting passports made as a safety measure.”

The abduction of teenage Hindu girls and their forced conversion to Islam is an ongoing issue, especially in Sindh. According to a 2015 Aurat Foundation report, every year nearly 1,000 girls from minority religions are forcefully converted to Islam. The report states that wilful conversions do take place but there is no doubt that forced conversions are a reality.

“Our mothers tell us not to go near Muslim villages, and to never to make eye contact with any Muslim man,” says 10-year-old Kavita.

Upon much protesting by minority activists, the Sindh Assembly passed a bill in November that criminalises forced religious conversions and forced marriages. But this too has led to much controversy. The Sindh government decided to review the bill in December, and early this year, the bill was returned.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2017