Pakistan: Abducted Christian Woman Forced to Marry Muslim Kidnapper

 

 

A 24-year-old Pakistani Christian woman has reportedly been abducted by Muslims and forced to convert to Islam and marry one of her kidnappers.

 

According to ChristianToday.com, Maryam Mushtaq was walking back from college accompanied by her 11-year-old brother, Romail, when she was ambushed by two masked Muslim men who grabbed her and threw her into the back of a vehicle, meanwhile shouting threats and insults at Romail.

 

Maryam’s mother, Mussarat, reported her daughter’s kidnapping to local police, but not much has been done to rescue her.

 

Contrary to setting a rescue mission in motion, the police told Mussarat that her daughter had not been kidnapped but had agreed to marry the Muslim man and convert to Islam.

 

Mussarat says this claim is false. "Maryam like the rest of us attends church every week there is no way she would give up her whole life and salvation to marry a Muslim man. Jesus has always been the centre of her life," she told the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA).

 

“Maryam had a good relationship with her brother Romail and remaining sister Khusboo, they would know if she had been interested in this man. None of them have ever even seen him before,” she added.

 

Mussarat lost her husband to cancer three years ago. Another daughter died two years ago and “Now kidnappers have taken away my daughter, I am devastated,” she said.

 

Unfair treatment of Christians by Pakistani officials is a frequent occurrence. A hearing will be held for Maryam’s case, but justice is unsure.

 

"Yet again an innocent Christian girl has been kidnapped and forced into Islamic marriage. We do not know the depravity or the brutality she has had to face but her entrapment will have a sordid edge to it no doubt," stated Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the BPCA.

 

“A justice system that does not permit the release of an abductee to her family is indicative of a flawed and failing rule of law. May God grant this poor woman freedom and a chance to fulfil her ambition of becoming a teacher, where she might be able to teach love and hope where so much cruelty exists,” he added.