Pakistani court denies Hindu sisters' plea to return home after forced conversion

Two sisters stood outside a courthouse in Tando Allahyar, a district in Pakistan's Sindh province, and wept. They were thirteen and fourteen years old. A judge had just refused to send them home to their parents. Instead, the court ordered them transferred to a safe house—a decision that left the girls sobbing, repeating the same plea over and over: "We want to go home."

Their names, according to family members and minority-rights groups, are Sita and Rupi. They belong to the Kachhi Kolhi community, one of several marginalized Hindu groups in Sindh. What happened to them, according to their family's account, was this: they were abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and married to two men—Amjad Solangi and Mansoor Solangi. A video of the girls outside the courthouse, recorded by Veengas, a Pakistani journalist and activist, captured their distress as the court declined their request to return with their parents. The exact circumstances of their disappearance, the conversions, and the marriages have not yet been independently verified through public police or court documents, though minority-rights campaigners say official records establish their ages as thirteen and fourteen.

What makes this case part of a larger crisis is its timing and its location. One day after the court hearing, Veengas reported that another fourteen-year-old Hindu girl, Pansi Kohli, had been abducted from the same district on September 9. Within a ten-day span, six Hindu minor girls in Tando Allahyar had been abducted and converted to Islam, according to reports tracked by activists. The pattern is not new to the district. In July 2025, three other girls—Khenchi Kolhi, Lata Devi Meghwar, and Meena Meghwar—had their families file police reports alleging kidnapping and forced conversion. Those girls later appeared before the Sindh High Court and stated they had converted and married voluntarily, though their mother, Roshini Meghwar, questioned this publicly, asking whether Hindu mothers give birth to daughters for religious conversion. In 2023, a peace-monitoring report documented the alleged abduction of thirteen-year-old Roshni Meghwar from Nasarpur in the same district.

Sindh is home to the majority of Pakistan's Hindu population, yet it has become the epicenter of complaints involving Hindu girls being abducted, converted, and married to Muslim men. The vulnerability is concentrated among the poorest communities—the Kolhi, Bheel, and Meghwar groups—families with minimal access to police, courts, legal representation, and political power. They are, in effect, nearly invisible to the systems meant to protect them. Amnesty International estimates that hundreds of young Hindu women across Pakistan have experienced abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage. The organization has also documented persistent discrimination against Pakistani Hindus, including attacks on temples and businesses and the weaponization of blasphemy allegations.

The legal framework exists. Sindh's Child Marriages Restraint Act of 2013 sets eighteen as the minimum marriage age for both sexes and makes arranging or facilitating a child marriage a cognizable, non-bailable, non-compoundable offense. If the sisters' stated ages are confirmed, both would fall squarely under this protection. Yet the court's decision to place them in a safe house rather than return them to their parents, despite their explicit wishes, raised immediate questions from activists about whether their voices were truly heard. Pakistani social activist Sorath Sindhu wrote that no decision affecting the girls should be made without ensuring they understood the process and could express their wishes freely. He called for independent legal and psychological support, for the court to center their age, their stated wishes, and their best interests in every decision going forward.

The case has drawn attention from Pakistani and international human-rights groups, but it also reflects a deeper question about state capacity and will. Pakistani activist Ayesha Gill described the sisters simply: "CHILDREN. Not brides. Not converts." The Voice of Pakistan Minority echoed the demand that age, wishes, and safety remain central to any proceeding. What remains unclear is whether the safe house placement is a protective measure pending further investigation or a step toward a different outcome. The girls' exact circumstances, the verification of their conversions, and the legitimacy of their marriages all remain unresolved in the public record. What is certain is that two children asked to go home, and the court said no.