Kasur (Agenzia Fides) - Help his daughter, victim of abduction, forced marriage and conversion to Islam: is the appeal launched by Sarwar Masih, a Pakistani Christian who asked the help of lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill, head of the NGO "Lead" ( Legal Evangelical Association Development), committed to providing free assistance to Christian victims of abuse. The girl, Laveeza Bibi, aged 23, was kidnapped on April 14 by two Muslims who stormed in Sarwar Masih’s family house, in the district of Kasur, in Punjab, armed with guns, taking the girl and threatening her parents. One of the kidnappers Muhammad Talib forced the girl to marry him.
Masih immediately went to the local police station, but the police were reluctant to registering a First Information Report. Even Pastor Saleem Masih, along with Gill are helping the family. Only after the intervention of the two, the police registered the complaint against Talib.
"In April in the area of Kasur alone, five Christian girls were kidnapped and converted to Islam and forced to marry their captors. These girls are denied the legal protection of individual rights", explains Gill to Fides. And the phenomenon continues to have unacceptable proportions, with about a thousand cases registered every year and many go unreported. The NGO "Lead" will continue to act and to raise awareness regarding the discrimination and violence suffered by women in Pakistan in particular of Christian religious minorities and Hindus, the most vulnerable and defenseless, subject to abuses which often go unpunished. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 25/04/2016)