Hindu girl shot dead in Pakistan’s Sindh province

Islamabad [Pakistan]: An 18-year-old Hindu girl in Pakistan’s Sindh Province was shot dead during a failed abduction attempt, media reports said on Tuesday.

The girl identified as Pooja Oad was said to have been shot in the middle of the street in Rohi, Sukkur after she put up resistance to the attackers, The Friday Times newspaper reported.

This is not a stand-alone incident in Pakistan. Human rights activists say that hundreds of Christian and Hindu girls are forced to convert to Islam every year.

Women belonging to minority communities are regularly abducted and forcibly converted. Rights group says the country’s minority communities have long faced the issue of forced marriages and conversions.

Multiple rights organisations have accused the Pakistan government of not taking necessary actions over the rising crimes against Hindus and other minorities.

Earlier, the provincial government in Sindh had attempted to outlaw forced conversions and marriages. However, religious protestors contested the bill, stating that girls only convert after falling in love with Muslim men.

The overall population of the Hindu community in Pakistan at 1.60 per cent, and 6.51 per cent in Sindh, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.