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January 29, 2006

KARACHI , Jan 17 (IPS) - When Pakistani cricketer Yousuf Youhana, the only Christian in the national team, announced that he had embraced Islam to become Mohammad Yousuf last September, the conversion hit the headlines everywhere.

Editorial writers and the public speculated about the reason for days. Some ascribed it to peer pressure: the influence of ex-cricketer Saeed Anwar who is a member of the non-political Tableeghi Jamaat religious cult. Others said, more wryly, that the cricketer might be just improving his chances of getting to lead the Pakistan team.

But the conversion of three Hindu girls, a few weeks later, went almost unnoticed in the media. There was little concern that the girls, Reena (21), Aishwariya (19), and Reema (17), from a lower middle-class family in Karachi's Punjab Colony, had run away from
home to become Muslims.

Their father Sanao Menghwar and mother Champa, who searched for them for two weeks, said they tried to lodge a complaint at the local police station but were not allowed.

The police finally registered a complaint on Oct. 22 on the intervention of a deputy superintendent of police. Three Muslim youths, identified as suspects by Menghwar, were apprehended, but later released on bail when the girls testified that they had only helped them convert.

Soon after, the family received an envelope containing affidavits signed by their daughters that stated they had converted to Islam of their own accord and had changed their names to Anam, Afshan and Nida respectively. Moreover, they said they didn't want to stay with their parents; preferring to live in the madrassa (religious school) where they were being instructed.

The parents went to court, which ordered that the police arrange a meeting between the parents and the girls. The meeting took place in the presence of the police, the madrassa instructor and a local woman. The girls were veiled in black, only their eyes showing. The father says his youngest daughter's eyes were bloodshot from weeping.

Thereafter, following a notification by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the girls were shifted to the Edhi Home for destitute women, run by a prominent charitable organisation, where they are allowed to meet their parents and go for their religious education.

''It just doesn't seem right, the whole episode reeks of human rights violation," says Ayesha Mir, programme coordinator at the women's rights organisation, Shirkatgah, that has been closely monitoring the case. ''There are too many questions that remain unanswered," she adds.

''Why did the women seek shelter in a madrassa? Why did they veil themselves in front of their parents, no Muslim woman does that?" she asks.

Rights activists say the girls have been victimised threefold: they are poor, belong to a minority community, and are women.

In another case, three years ago, Sundri, a college student in Larkana, went to college one day, never to return home. Two weeks later, the police told her parents that she had eloped with a Muslim man and converted to Islam. The marriage did not last. Neither did
two others. She died shortly after the third, in mysterious circumstances.

Anis Haroon, director of Aurat Foundation, a voluntary agency that works for the empowerment of women, says that conversions like these need to be discussed as a ''constitutional issue, not a women's rights or religious issue."

''Minority women, in general, remain more vulnerable than men," says Javed Jabbar, former information minister. He reckons their low status in the discriminatory caste system, compounded by the shrinking numbers of Hindus -- a mere 2.7 million of the country's 140 million people -- makes women more susceptible. ''The rights of Hindu women require special protection and enforcement by the state," he says.

Tasneem Ahmar, director of UKS, which monitors the portrayal of women in the media, wonders why more women are converting. ''We have to find answers soon before this sort of conversion becomes a legitimised practice," she says.

A report by a Pakistani journalist in Mid-Day, an Indian tabloid, on Nov. 15 says: ''at least 19 such abduction cases have occurred in Karachi alone", last year. A shaken Hindu community is ''marrying off their daughters as soon as they are of marriageable age or migrate to India, Canada or other nations," he writes.

In the recent conversion, the lawyer representing the father of the three girls, Raja Hussain, says the girls were forced to marry their captors. He claimed they were kidnapped and harassed by the three youths. As evidence, he said the girls refused to respond when asked if they were going to marry the youths.

Article 20 of Pakistan's Constitution protects the rights of citizens to practice their religion. ''Then what is the basis or rationale for someone to exercise force against anyone for exercising his or her rights under these provisions?" wonders Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, a retired Supreme Court judge

''Apparently none," he adds. ''The constitution neither approves, expressly or impliedly, nor permits any forcible conversion. Violation of others' rights is not justifiable on any ground."

He advises that every effort should be made to ascertain if the decision to convert was made voluntarily. It is necessary for police and judicial officers to be trained, and an atmosphere created where they can discharge their duties ''without fear of retaliation", he
adds.

Haroon puts the blame squarely on the state. ''It has been unable to guarantee civil rights to its people, specifically its minorities," she says.

Jabbar believes it is everyone's responsibility. ''All citizens have an obligation to protect minorities and prevent coercive conversion. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are very tolerant and respectful of religious minorities," he says.

When Shirkatgah visited Punjab Colony to investigate the conversion, they reported that the neighbourhood was very tense. ''People were visibly scared and those Hindus, who had earlier told us that they would talk to us, refused to even recognise us when we went a second time. The father who spoke to us for 45 minutes, peered outside three times to see if someone was eavesdropping."

''People are a little wary à they can be slapped with the blasphemy law and put behind bars," explains Shirkatgah's Mir. She thinks the apex court which provided the three women police protection, should do the same for their parents.

Pakistan's blasphemy laws have been used to persecute non-Muslims. Minority religious groups have long sought to have the law scrapped.

Still, Menghwar refuses to give up hope of getting his daughters back. Neither does he believe their conversion was voluntary. The girls had said in court: ''We have left our home and religion by ourselves and no one forced us into this...we used to listen to Islamic programmes on television and decided to convert to Islam." (END/2006)