New York, May 18, 2016: On March 8th, 2015, a 14-year old Anarkali Kaur was returning to her home from Gurudwara. The time was 7 pm but her family kept waiting and waiting but this wait soon turned endless. The daughter of Ms. Baghi Kaur simply vanished somewhere and was never heard of again. The Hindu Goth, Karachi, where she used to live has never been the same.
The Pakistani police, as always sloppy, finally after much pleading registered a missing complaint 8 days later on 16th March 2015. They somehow managed to arrest a man and then, somewhere in the middle, the case died.
So what happened to her? No one knows, her mother’s tears have not dried up as yet and she still awaits her daughter Anarkali Kaur.
The fears of forced conversion and forced marriages are a reality in a country like Pakistan where every year thousands of non-Muslim girls are kidnapped and married to elderly men, never to be heard of again. The worse is that these girls do not even remain as the wives of these men, but are trafficked.
It is now more than a year and no one knows where Anarkali Kaur is, and it seems that no one even wants to know this either. It is due to forced conversions that Hindus, Sikhs, and other minorities are coming to India in huge numbers.
India has population burden of its own, but where else can these minorities go to? This is a question that the Indian government must think over and enlighten the world community of the grave human rights violations that are taking place in its backyard.
Anarkali Kaur and her family is fighting a losing battle, but if India and other world powers decide to speak on their behalf, then many girls could be saved. But who would care?
