American woman raises her voice for abducted & raped Hindu sister in Pakistan, shames USCIRF

Aarti Kumari Sharma, 20, who was abducted by gunmen from her home and forcibly converted and married.

Jane E. Weisner, (Right) Social Media Director, American Friends of Balochistan, with her beautiful daughter.

Family of Aarti Kumari Sharma, 20, who has not been produced in court ever since her abduction on September 9 last year, have rejected  the claim that their daughter had converted on her free will. The abductors appear.

The First Information report lodged with the police by the vitim's brother Heera Lal can send jitters down the spine of any person with human conscience: Aaarti Kumari Sharma, a teacher at Qasim Middle School along with her brother Heera Lal, her father Raj Kumar  and uncle Mahesh Kumar where home in Hindu Mohalla in Gambat town on September 9 at 2.30 pm when six armed men barged into the Hindu family's home. The culprits were identified as Ameer Wassan, and his brothers Naveed Wassan, Gulshan Wassan and Ghulam Rasul Wassan and two unidentified gunmen. 

Ameer Wassan, now is now the girl's "husband," pointed his gun at the male members of the family and ordered them to keep silent and due to fear the Hindu business family complied. As Aarti wept, the wassan brothers shoved her in a vehicle parked outside the Hindu family's home while the two other gunmen left on a motorbike.

Mehnaz Rahman, a woman rights activist in Karachi said there are too many conversions and/or love marriages to keep track off. "If I am not wrong this is an old case and the girl released a video showing her consent for marriage. If this is not the same case or is a recent one then let's wait for Aarti's statement," she said. 

"If Aarti had converted on her own free will why did they have to bring her to the brief four minute meeting that was arranged by minister Manzoor Wassan," asked Kishore Sharma, the abducted Hindu girl's uncle who lives in Houston. He said, "If the captors of his niece say she is now a Muslim, let us ask her five very basic questions on islam and if she answers them correctly we will say the girl has converted.

Sharma said though abduction of very poor Hindus in lower Sindh was quite common, the abduction of Hindu girls in upper Sindh are a relatively new phenomenon. "It started when Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was the chief justice of the supreme court," the hapless uncle of the abducted girl said.

"As women's rights organisation one can only help the woman speak her mind," Rahman said. "If she's kidnapped file a case and demand her production in court where she can give her statement," she added. But Kishore Sharma, aarti Kumari's uncle said this is what the family has been doing since the 20-year-old girl was kidnapped on September 9.

In the United States, an American who believes Pakistan army and ISI are at the roots of all social and political problems, has shamed the United States Commission on International Religious Religious Freedom for failing to do justice to Aarti Sharma and other Hindu and Christian girls.

"Where is your concern for the Hindu and Christian females forced to covert to Islam so as to be forced to marry?" Jane E. Weisner asked of the  USCIRF executives and shamed them on their lack of action! "Why are you inactive? What motivates you to say or do nothing to save helpless, kidnapped females? Are you as misogynistic as the Islamic kidnappers? I think you are. It is the only conclusion I can reach for your silence," Weisner, who is social media director of the American Friends of Balochistan, said. 

"These helpless women must be returned to their families. Their kidnappers must me arrested, charged and tried for the capital crime against humanity, slavery," she said. "Yes, forced to work, even inside a marriage, without the ability to leave is slavery."

She regretted that the USCIRF is supporting slavery by its inaction and silence. "You have chosen to support kidnappers, forced conversion and forced marriage," she opined.

Weisner said the international community must act uniformly to damn such actions in Pakistan and demand that they be stopped. "USCIRF use your voice and power to end forced conversion, marriage and slavery," she urged.

To debunk the video that Aarti Kumari Sharma converted on her own free will, her Houston-based uncle Kishore Sharma shared with this writer a video news clip about a Hindu religious gathering in March 2016 conversion and forced marriage, in which the now abducted girl is seen defending her faith and culture (Please watch videos below). 

More than 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls, most of them minors, are reportedly abducted, converted and forcibly married in Pakistan. The problem is bigger than this as majority of the cases go unreported since the families are too poor to seek legal recourse.

If you like to help secure Aarti Kumari Sharma freedom, please sign the petition launched by the Hindu American Foundation.