A 40-year-old Hindu woman belonging to the Bheel community was allegedly gang-raped and murdered on Wednesday, in Pakistan’s Sinjhoro town of Sindh province.
Pakistan People’s Party leader Krishna Kumari, the country’s first female senator from the Hindu community, informed in a tweet that the victim was beheaded, her breast was chopped off, and her skin was peeled off from the body and face.
Kumari tweeted: “Daya (Bheel) 40 years widow brutally murdered and body was found in very bad condition. Her head was separated from the body and the savages had removed flesh of the whole head. Visited her village. Police teams from Sinjhoro and Shahpurchakar also reached (sic.).”
Kumari’s media coordinator Jiyala Bheel said that Daya’s body was found in an agriculture field yesterday, and that the police have gathered details from her family.
She further informed that a post-mortem has been done and further investigation is underway.
The Bheel community, which speaks mainly Marwari, Gujarati, and Sindhi, is concentrated in the Khairpur, Mirpur Khas and Hyderabad districts of Sindh, and the Bahawalpur district of Punjab.
Reacting to the news during the weekly media briefing of the Ministry of External Affairs, spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, “We have seen reports about it, but we don’t have specific details on the case… But we have reiterated that Pakistan should protect its minorities along with their safety, security and well-being, which is their responsibility.”
A nonprofit news organisation, The Rise News tweeted, “Will the police apprehend culprits? Will Hindus be treated as equal citizens in their motherland Sindh?”
Recently, the UK government imposed sanctions on a Muslim cleric Mian Abdul Haq for his involvement in forced conversions and marriages of girls and women from religious minorities. The International Forum For Rights And Security (IFFRAS) has said that the latest sanction highlights the dangers faced by minorities in Pakistan.
An IFFRAS report titled ‘Conversion Without Consent’ says that there has been an increase in violence against non-Muslim women in Pakistan, but the state remains indifferent, and the judiciary denies timely justice in most cases.
Reportedly, Pakistan’s Punjab’s province sees the most number of abductions, forced faith conversions, and forced and child marriage of girls and women at 86 percent, followed by Sindh at 11 percent, Islamabad at 2 percent, and 1 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As per a Voice of Justice report: “The perpetrators mostly manipulate the law and justice system to get away with their crimes due to the absence of legislation which deals with forced faith conversions, and the lack of enforcement of existing domestic law; this remains a key impediment in preventing such harmful and inhumane practices.”
Read more: Indian Ministers React After Pakistan’s Nuclear Threat
