“Pakistan: Father of four abducts and marries 13-year-old Christian employee after forcefully converting her to Islam,” OpIndia, June 21, 2021:
Religious minorities continue to face discrimination and
persecution, such as misuse of the anti-blasphemy law, kidnapping, rape,
forced conversions and enforced disappearances of non-Muslims girls, in
Pakistan. The forceful conversion programs have always been unleashed
against the minorities Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs living in Pakistan
with utmost brutality. There have been many such cases reported in the
recent past.
In yet another case of religious persecution and sexual crimes
against children, a 13-year-old Pakistani Christian girl Nayab Gill was
abducted from Gujranwala Division located in Punjab, Pakistan, forcibly
converted to Islam and married to an already married Muslim man who is a
father of four girls, last month.
Now, a video clip of her shattered and helpless parents is doing the
rounds on social media, where they narrate their plight and plead for
justice. The clip was shared by the Twitter handle Voice for Pakistan
Minority, today (June 21).
In the 2.16-minute video clip, the distressed mother and the father
narrate how a man named Saddam deceived them on the pretext of offering
their minor child a job and abducted her. He then brainwashed and
converted her to Islam. Saddam, who already has three wives and four
children, thereafter performed ‘Nikah’ with the 13-year-old Nayab Gill.
The Pakistan court, on the other hand, without hearing the victim
family’s plea or looking into the victim’s birth certificate, which
clearly indicated the Nayab Gill is a minor, sent the teenager with her
abductor. Now, the parents are pleading that justice is provided to
them.
In the video, Nayab Gill’s father Shahid Masih Gill rued that Saddam
had sworn by the Quran that he would treat their daughter like his own
when he tried to convince the parents to send Nayab to work with him,
but he cheated them.
Shahid Masih Gill recollected how Nayab, who worked in a salon, had
lost her job due to the pandemic. The family was going through a
financial crisis when Saddam approached him and asked him to allow Nayab
to work for him as he was short of staff. Saddam promised to treat
Nayab as his 5th daughter and assured him that there was nothing to
worry about. “But I didn’t know that he was planning to take my daughter
away from me,” Gill lamented.
He added: “They brainwashed my daughter – she was a good Christian, but I don’t know how she was trapped by them.”
On May 20, 2021, the minor went for her work but did not return home.
The family members started searching for her. They approached Saddam to
inquire about their daughter’s whereabouts, but he refused to know
anything about it. Disquieted by the sudden disappearance of their minor
daughter, the family approached the police with a missing complaint.
The police, which started investigating the case, later informed Nayab’s
parents that she was in Darul Aman and she has converted to Islam and
married Saddam.
The girl’s father says in the video that he could not meet his
daughter and does not know whether she is alive or had been killed.
In the video, the mother laments that Saddam and his family
brainwashed their daughter to such an extent that when the mother asked
her to return, she refused. Insisting on living with Saddam, Nayab asked
her mother to think she was dead.
According to reports, Saddam and his family started preaching about
Islam to Nayab during the free time when there were no customers in
Saddam’s palour. They gradually brainwashed her into believing that
Christianity is an irrational faith and the only true one is Islam.
Nayab was convinced as several people were working hard to change her
mind and thoughts about Islam, and slowly she started taking interest
in Islamic teachings. Nayab was given some Islamic gifts like
Jah-e-Namaz (a small piece of carpet on which Muslims offer their
prayer) and tasbih (Islamic Rosary) and books. She was taught how to
offer prayers five times a day as per the Muslim faith.
According to Nayab’s father, she was gradually and secretly
brainwashed by her employer Saddam Hussain and his family without their
knowledge or consent.
Nayab’s birth certificate clearly mentions that she was born on
October 16, 2007, that is she is a minor. However, the conversion
certificate which was later produced by Saddam in the Pakistan court
mentioned Nayab’s age as 19, which means Saddam lied about Nayab’s age
in order to convert her to Islam and thereafter marry her.
Gujranwala court rules in favour of abductor, allows him custody of the girl ignoring birth certificate.
