Karachi: A Pakistani court refused to allow a Hindu girl to leave a shelter home and go with her parents despite medical tests confirming that she was 16 years old when she was forcibly abducted, converted to Islam and married to her captor in Sindh province.
The girl was taken from Hyderabad, Sindh, on August 12; she was found and sent to a secure home on October 20 as a result of a court order. In light of the girl's purported husband's submission of a marriage certificate indicating that she was 19 years old, the court ordered a medical investigation to ascertain the girl's age. However, medical exams revealed that she was 16 years old.
The court ruled that the girl will remain in a shelter home under the supervision of the local administration until the next hearing, as it needed to look further into the matter. According to her parents and their lawyer, the police did not file a case until September after which police and human right officials recovered her from Balochistan and brought her back to Hyderabad. She was kept in a shelter home as her alleged husband filed a case against her parents.
