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Lahore (Pakistan): The Christian mother of a
12-year-old girl in Punjab Province who was kidnapped,
coerced into converting to Islam and forcibly married to
a 37-year-old Muslim hopes to recover her daughter at
the next court hearing.
The reaction of Pakistani law enforcement authorities to
Sajida Masih's complaint so far ridiculing her and
asserting that there is nothing she can do because her
daughter is now a Muslim does not encourage her hopes of
recovering her daughter Huma at next hearing.
Masih said that Muhammad Imran abducted Huma at gunpoint
on February 23, 2009 from Hanif Kot village in
Gujranwala district, forcibly converted her and then
married her. Imran has since disappeared along with his
first wife, three children and new child-bride.
Masih, who worked alongside Imran as a farmhand, said
the kidnapping occurred on her son's wedding day at gun
point. Unable to get police to register the case, Masih
submitted a report with the help of a lawyer, but the
police refused to register it.
Three days after the kidnapping, police finally
registered a First Information Report (FIR) on February
26 but changed the age of the kidnapped girl from 12, as
her mother reported, to 16.
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