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Hindus say judiciary has failed them

Criticisms follow controversial ruling on forced conversions
Hindus say judiciary has failed them
Protestors demonstrate for minority rights in Lahore earlier this week
Published: April 19, 2012 10:31 AM GMT
Updated: April 19, 2012 10:31 AM GMT

Hindus say they have lost their faith in the judiciary after the Supreme Court yesterday opted to allow three young girls at the center of a tug of war case to decide their own futures. Their families say they were kidnapped, married off to Muslim men and forced to convert to Islam. The three girls yesterday chose to live with their husbands, after the top court ruled in Islamabad that they were old enough to decide for themselves. One of them included Rinkle Kumari, whose family had accused a Pakistan People’s Party lawmaker of involvement in her alleged abduction and forced conversion. The distraught parents of the girls however disputed the court’s decision yesterday, saying they were denied the right to speak to their daughters and that they didn’t make their choice from their own free will. “They kept pleading but were not allowed to meet the girls. We were denied justice,” said Ramesh Kumar who brought the case to court. “The country is becoming a land only for Muslims,” the patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council added. The court sent the girls to a shelter last month to make a decision after one told the chief justice she wanted go back to her parents. Rights workers criticized the move saying it gave the chance for clerics or police to threaten the girls who they say would have been under immense social and psychological pressure.

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