In a few months, several incidents targeted the Hindu minority in the Sindh village of Shaikh Bhirkio and the Tando Allahyar district.
by Massimo Introvigne
Human rights organizations and activists in Pakistan have called the attention on social media to the case of a 6-year-old girl nicknamed Ritu (real name omitted for privacy reasons), which was abducted and sexually abused by two 23-year-old Muslim men while she was playing outdoor in the village of Shaikh Bhirkio, Tando Allahyar district, Sindh province.
Ritu was found lying unconscious and injured around six kilometers from her home and taken to the local hospital. Although an arrest has been made, her parents complained that the police had been unsympathetic and uncooperative.
The village of Shaikh Bhirkio and the Tando Allahyar district have a sizable presence of ultra-fundamentalist Muslims, and have been the theatre of several incidents of sectarian violence targeting the Hindu minority.
In February, Muslim thugs attacked the home of a Hindu called Neelo Kolhy with sticks and guns. They fired at the family and Neelo Kolhy’s daughter, Soodhi, was injured. A FIR (First Information Report) was filed with the police, but again the officers according to Neelo Kolhy were slow to act and uncooperative.
On October 2022, a 10-year-old Hindu girl of Shaikh Bhirkio called Meena Bajani was kidnapped while she was washing clothes outside of her home, with the purpose of being converted to Islam and married to a Muslim man. In this case, the police rescued the girl and placed her in a shelter home.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
