IHC allows Ghotki sisters to live with their husbands

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) allowed on Thursday the two teenage Hindu girls who were allegedly abducted, forced to convert and marry Muslim men to live, with their husbands.

During the case proceedings presided by the Chief Justice of IHC Athar Minallah, the interior secretary informed the judge that the two girls, Reena and Raveena, accepted Islam on their own to marry their lovers, local media reported. The interior secretary also told the court that medical tests proved the girls are adults aged 18 and 19. After the report from the commission, the court then allowed Reena and Raveena to reunite with their husbands.

The two Hindu girls Reena and Raveena, along with their spouses Safdar Ali and Barkat Ali had earlier appealed to the IHC to grant them protection from their families. In their petition, the girls said that they had converted to Islam of their own free will and should be given protection.

The IHC had ordered the state to provide protective custody to the girls and then handed them over to the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Islamabad Hamza Shafqaat. The high court had also formed a five-member commission. The board comprised Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari, Scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani and four others, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Chairperson Dr Mehdi Hasan, National Commission on the Status of Women Chairperson Khawar Mumtaz and  human rights activist IA Rehman,

Prime Minister Imran Khan had also taken notice of the incident of the abduction and ordered the provincial governments of Sindh and Punjab to carry out an investigation.