Christian Girl Rescued From Pakistani Muslim Police Officer Who Abducted Her and Forced Her to Convert to Islam
An apparent human trafficking scheme involving the forced conversion of kidnapped Christian girls into Islam was recently uncovered in Pakistan. After their conversion, the girls are then reportedly sold off to Muslim men.
The discovery was made following the rescue in Punjab province of a 14-year-old Christian girl Sumbal Arif from her kidnapper, who was a police officer, the Morning Star News reported.
According to the Arif family's lawyer, Sumbal was illegally held on Dec. 6 last year by police officer Munir Ahmed, who allegedly coerced her into converting to Islam and forced her to live with him.
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Sumbal was eventually rescued from the police officer's home on April 26 and presented in court the next day.
The girl told the court that she was forced to convert to Islam and held hostage by the police officer.
The suspect denied this, saying Sumbal had "embraced" Islam.
Despite the girl's confession, the court did not order her abductor's arrest and merely asked the police to investigate the accusations made against him.
Elizabeth Arif, Sumbal's mother, said Ahmed changed her daughter's name to Fatima Noor and wanted her to continue living with his Muslim family to practice her new religion.
Arif accused Ahmed and his wife of enticing young girls and selling them off to Muslim men after changing their religion.
She said her daughter learned about this during her illegal confinement.
"It was during her detention there that Sumbal came to know that the police official and his wife were in the business of selling girls for over 10 years," Arif claimed.
She said her daughter could not escape on her own as her abductor had warned her that when someone becomes a Muslim they cannot revert back to their old faith and go back to their family.
"They told her that apostates are liable to be killed, and my poor daughter had started believing that she would not be able to return to us as she would be guilty of apostasy," Arif said.
Sumbal's case comes just a month after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif warned against forced conversions and the destruction of non-Muslim places of worship, describing such acts as a "crime in Islam."
Addressing a gathering in Karachi on March 14, Sharif said, "No one can force others to adopt a certain religion," the Dawn reported.
"God will not ask a ruler what he did for followers of a certain religion," said Sharif. "He will ask people such as me: what did we do for God's creation?"
"Some people wear a turban. Some wear a chogha. Others wear a suit and tie, and some wear shalwar kameez. These are all creations of God," the prime minister pointed out. "And that's fine. This is a freedom given to us by God. Who are we to take it away?"
