Punjab, Pakistan: A teenage Catholic girl named Sehar was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in Okaro, Punjab. The First Information Report (FIR) is registered against three Muslim men, and police are continuing to search for them and to recover the girl.

  13 year old Sehar was working on a brick kiln with her family to support them when she was kidnapped on 23 April by a Muslim man, Allah Rakha, who was living in the same area. Sehar’s father has been ill for some time and is unable to work, so the rest of the family works in his place.

  The family consists of nine brothers and four sisters. Two elder sisters are married and living in a nearby village, while the remainder live together and work on the brick kiln. 

  According to Sehar’s brother Irfan, three men came on motorbikes at midnight and forcefully kidnapped his sister at gunpoint and fled. Irfan said, “I recognised one of them. It was Allah Rakha, while I don’t know about the other two. They broke our main door and entered our house, it was all of sudden, and we didn’t know what to do, however we resisted as much as it was possible, but they were threatening that if we tried to stop them they would kill us. Allah Rakha grabbed Sehar by her arm forcefully while she was shouting and resisting but couldn’t escape because of his grip.” 

  Irfan said, “It is very shameful for us, but since they had guns and threatened to kill us if anyone tried to stop them, we couldn’t do much. These were the weak moments of my life and I cannot forgive myself as I couldn’t save my sister from being kidnapped.”

  “Because of shouting and crying our neighbours Haroon and Ashir also came to help us but they were also threatened. They are two important eyewitnesses to this kidnapping.”

  Nasreen Bibi, mother of Sehar, said “My daughter is very young and innocent. We didn’t know anything about Allah Rakha’s plans. First, he made friends with my younger son Adil for entry into our house and then he kidnapped my daughter.”

 The mother said, “We are Roman Catholic for generations, but now I fear that they will first convert my daughter to Islam and then may marry her. She is very young, and she is not the age of marriage. I am not sure whether he really wants to marry her or has kidnapped her for other purposes.”

 Saba, elder sister of Sehar, said, “Allah Rakha and my younger brother Adil were friends and worked on the same brick kiln. Three months ago Rakha trapped my younger brother and deceptively converted him to Islam.”

 She further said, “We will never forget the character of Allah Rakha. First he converted my younger brother Adil and now he kidnapped my younger sister.”  She appealed to the Christian community to stand with them to bring Sehar back. “She is very young and innocent.”

 Nadeem, another brother of Sehar, also appealed to the Christian community to help them in the recovery of his sister.

 Sunny, a rickshaw driver who lives next door to the victim’s family, said, “This family is innocent, and Allah Rakha has cheated them and kidnapped their 13 year old girl at gunpoint. The kidnappers were loaded with weapons and took Sehar’s mother at gunpoint while other family members were in another room. While Sehar’s father is an old man, he is sick and not able to handle this kind of situation. They came on two bikes and kidnapped Sehar and fled away.”

  Irfan, Sehar’s brother, further told us, “We are all brick kiln workers, and more than 4000 Christian people are living in different villages in this area. Two main big churches along with other small churches are also situated in this area.”

 An estimated average of 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls are forced to convert to the Islamic faith every year. However, human rights organisations working on the issue believe that it is highly plausible that a substantial number of occurrences remain unreported. Forced conversion of religious minorities primarily in girls, some younger than 12 years old, seems to have become a norm not only for the Pakistani government but for the community as well. Hardly any member of society admits to seeing the severity of the problem at hand. Moreover, government and law enforcement agencies, those with power who supposedly are knowledgeable about the laws and legalities regarding human rights, are aware of the situation yet turn a blind eye.