Sikh girl abducted and married into Islam in Pakistan

A Sikh girl has been abducted and forcefully married into Islam in Pakistan, according to local reports.

Resham Kaur, who according to reports is anywhere from 14-16-years-old, was allegedly kidnapped by a Muslim youth named Wazir Hussain in the Jacobabad district of Sindh province of Pakistan.  According to the official Islam adoption and marriage certificates, her new name is Beesharan. This latest case is one of many reported abductions of minority community women that end up in forced marriages in Pakistan, an issue which Sikhs have spoken about for decades.

The Sindh Sikh community came together to protest

A first information report (FIR) under abduction charges has been registered by Resham Kaur’s parents (seen in the main image) within a police station against Hussain, in Sohnipur village in the Zaffrabad district of Sindh, where Hussain resides.

According to local sources, raids are to be conducted to arrest Hussain and his accomplices who helped him abduct Resham Kaur. However, Hussain claims that as Resham Kaur is 16 she willingly adopted Islam to marry him, as any female aged 16 is allowed to do independently in Pakistan.

Situations like this often end without clear conclusion, with many still wondering about the case of Nankana Sahib based Jagjit Kaur, another Sikh teenager that was reported as kidnapped by her family, only to appear in a video claiming she had a new husband and had adopted Islam. In her situation, the case dragged on for months before a second hand claim via a court hearing stated she was happy to stay with her new Muslim husband. However, this was after months of staying at a government appointed safe-house which has had accusations raised against its running, with some claiming the girls sent there are persuaded it is safer for their family to accept their new husbands.

Sources have explained to the Sikh PA team that authorities struggle to find a balance between upsetting the country’s Muslim majority by enforcing the law by doing something which would be seen as taking the side of Sikhs in such a dispute, vs tackling an age-old issue of the country which keeps it considered an unsafe place for non-Muslims. The current government, under Prime Minister Imran Khan, are keen to counter this image of Pakistan, as seen with their moves to encourage Sikh tourism in the country.

An example of how the Muslim community can react badly to such issues in Pakistan was seen when the sacred Nankana Sahib Janam Asthan Gurdwara was surrounded and attacked by a mob cheering on anti-Sikh slogans in January this year. This incident occurred specifically because of the arrest of the Muslim youth involved in the kidnapping of Jagjit Kaur.

Sikh PA will provide updates on this story as it continues.