Brides of Contention: Forced Conversions in Pakistan

If you are a Hindu citizen of Pakistan and the parent of a girl, one of your greatest fears is that your daughter could be forcibly converted to Islam and married off. The forced conversion of young women and girls from religious minorities, particularly Hindus in Pakistan, has increasingly become commonplace. Hindu girls, whether minors or adults, disappear from their homes, and after days their parents learn that their daughter has converted to Islam and married a Muslim man. A sanad (certificate) is often issued by a madrassah (Islamic seminary) or a so called pir (spiritual leader), declaring that the girl has converted to Islam and now bears a new Islamic name. The conversion of young Hindu girls continues unabated regardless of age. Even minor girls between the ages of nine and thirteen are reportedly converted and married to Muslim men old enough to be their grandfathers.

Due to these conversions, many Hindu families have migrated from Pakistan, mostly to neighboring India.

According to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, in 2025 alone, “about 75 percent of the women and girls affected by forced conversion through marriage were Hindu and 25 percent Christian. Almost 80 percent of incidents occurred in Sindh province. Adolescent girls between 14 and 18 are particularly targeted, and some girls are even younger. Women and girls facing poverty and marginalisation face heightened risks, often being exposed to physical and sexual abuse and exploitation, social stigma and severe trauma.”

Pakistan’s Hindu population constitutes less than two percent of the country’s total population, and approximately 94 percent of them live in Sindh. Hindus in Sindh have paid a heavy price to remain in Pakistan. They are often treated with suspicion and accused of being Indian agents or spies.

Before 1951, Hindus reportedly made up 21 percent of Sindh’s population. The so-called upper-caste Hindu communities are largely involved in business, while many are also professionals such as doctors and engineers. The so-called lower-caste Hindus include farmers, growers, peasants, and laborers. A large number of them work as bonded laborers on the lands of feudal landlords, while others are tailors, shoemakers, nomads, and vegetable and fruit growers and sellers.

Hindu business communities have traditionally been successful in trade, particularly in the grain and cotton markets and retail industries. Many also own vast tracts of land. Their economic success has often led to jealousy and persecution. They are maligned, branded as infidels or “enemy agents,” and in many cases their businesses and lands are illegally occupied. Their daughters are allegedly forcibly converted to Islam or manipulated into conversion.

Whenever tensions escalate between Pakistan and India, Hindu communities in Pakistan often suffer. During the wars of 1965 and 1971, Hindu government employees serving in towns and villages along the Indian border in Sindh were reportedly transferred to remote areas. Prominent Hindu figures such as Sobho Gianchandani, Professor Arjun Lal, medical student Dr. Nand Waryani, and others were detained under security laws until the wars ended.

Hindu businesspeople have reportedly faced robbery, extortion, and kidnapping for ransom. Yet many were unwilling to abandon their homeland. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Hindus were aimed to be driven out of approximately one hundred square miles around the Pano Aqil garrison in Sindh.

A brilliant Hindu lecturer named Ashok Kumar at an engineering college was reportedly arrested and disappeared in 1974. Since then, he has remained missing. It was alleged that he was killed, although later the government’s Home Department published a newspaper advertisement claiming that he had broken out of police custody and fled to India.

Several Hindus were kidnapped and killed by bandits even after their families paid ransom demands. In some cases, even infants and toddlers were kidnapped.

Accusations of blasphemy against Hindus are also not uncommon. A Hindu professor, Notan Lal, reportedly reprimanded a Muslim student for not doing homework. The student allegedly lied to his parents, claiming that Professor Notan Lal had spoken disrespectfully about the Prophet Muhammad. The parents approached influential pirs of Bharchundi, who called for action against Hindus in Ghotki town. Enraged mobs led by these pirs attacked Hindu places of worship, homes, and properties, and ransacked temples. Professor Notan Lal was arrested, jailed, and faced a blasphemy trial for four years. Although he was eventually acquitted, he later fled to India with his family.

In March of this year, a 13-year-old Hindu girl named Lacchmi from the Kolhi community was allegedly abducted, converted to Islam, and married to a Muslim man three times her age. Her parents’ lawyer produced documentation from the national registration database confirming that she was a minor, but the judge rejected their plea. Instead, the minor Hindu girl was sent to a Dar ul Aman shelter.

Two minor Hindu sisters, Reema and Raveena, daughters of a daily wage earner, left their home in the town of Daharki. The next day, their father was informed that the girls had converted to Islam and married Muslim men.

“My mother is a 60-year-old Muslim woman. If you ask her, she cannot even tell you three of the five fundamentals of Islam. How, then, can 12- or 13-year-old Hindu girls suddenly become influenced by Islam?” journalist Asad Chandio said during an Indian television talk show. Chandio has been highly active in campaigning against the forced conversions of Hindu girls in Pakistan, including the high-profile case of Rinkul Kumari, which involved the influential local pir and former member of the National Assembly, Abdul Haq alias Mian Mitho. Mian Mitho and his shrine at Bharchundi have long been associated with the conversion of Hindu women.

In February 2017, a young Hindu woman named Rinkul Kumari was allegedly abducted. She was brought before a local court in a procession of hundreds of people led by bearded men armed with automatic weapons such as AK-47s, chanting slogans of “Allah-o-Akbar.” Rinkul Kumari and her alleged husband appeared before the judge in a courtroom packed with supporters, and she stated that she had changed her religion, converted to Islam, and married a Muslim man. The judge allowed her to leave with her husband and the crowd.

The crowd later returned with Rinkul Kumari, now renamed Faryal Shah, chanting slogans and firing bullets into the air, sending waves of shock and fear through the Hindu community in the town. Journalist Asad Chandio and Raj Kumar, the maternal uncle of Rinkul Kumari, decided to challenge the conversion legally. They pursued the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but the outcome remained the same as that of the local magistrate’s court.

Rinkul Kumari’s family eventually migrated to India, with the exception of her uncle Raj Kumar. Alongside journalist Asad Chandio, Raj Kumar launched a movement against the forced conversion of Hindu women and girls. In return, both men reportedly received serious death threats. The pir of Bharchundi Mian Mitho and his disciples allegedly pronounced a “death sentence” against Asad Chandio. He was later picked up by Pakistan’s military intelligence agents, interrogated, threatened, and branded an “Indian agent.” Asad eventually fled Pakistan and now lives in the United States.

Rinkul Kumari’s uncle later died of a heart attack at a young age. Mian Mitho, also known as Pir Abdul Haq, has since been sanctioned by the UK government following campaigns by Asad, Raj Kumar, and other organizations. He and his family members are reportedly banned from entering the UK, and any assets held there have been frozen. An Indian producer has also made a film based on the story of Rinkul Kumari.

But the conversions of young Hindu women and girls continue unabated despite laws such as  Prevention of Child Marriage Act. In a case involving the conversion of a 14-year-old Hindu boy, a local judge ruled, “The fourth Caliph of Islam, Ali, embraced Islam at the age of fourteen.”

“Conversion has become a vast political and economic network involving clergy, lawyers, and courts, along with money and bribes,” says another activist.

According to Asad Chandio, “This is the mindset. When we call them ‘minorities,’ we separate them from ourselves.”

Had there been no conversions of some Hindu women in Sindh, there would rarely have been a Pakistan. It was Sindh that tabled the resolution for the creation of Pakistan.