03/17/2019 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) – Earlier this month, Saima Iqbal, a 35-year-old Pakistani Christian mother of three, was abducted by a Muslim man was allegedly forced to convert to Islam.
Naveed Iqbal, the husband of Saima, told local authorities that his wife was abducted from their home at night, outside of Islamabad by a man named Muhammad Khalid Sati. After returning home from a night shift, Mr. Iqbal was shaken by his missing wife. He soon made a compliant to the local police, reporting the incident.
Mr. Iqbal said, “The police did not take immediate action in respect of my application. They lodged a police First Information Report (FIR) only after I threatened to harm myself.”
After ten heart wrenching days of searching, the accused was arrested and the policy recovered his wife, Saima. However, contrary to Mr. Iqbal’s faith of a hopeful reunion with his wife, the police notified him that she had converted to Islam and had married the accused.
Fortunately, the conversion and the marriage certificates are fake as it does not contain a cleric’s signature. Mr. Iqbal has appealed to Pakistani Prime Minister and Pakistan’s chief justice to help him get justice for his family.
“I have challenged the forced conversion and the forced marriage of my wife in a magistrate’s court,” said Mr. Iqbal. The magistrate’s court has supposedly placed March 19th as the date of hearing.
Pakistani religious minorities are faced with the common normality of abductions and forced conversions to Islam. Pakistani authorities should place measures to stop the increasing incidents of forced conversions of young Christian Women. The government of Pakistan must give protection to Mrs. Saima Iqbal so that she could speak the truth without fear of facing abuse by the accused.
