Malik M Aslam Awan
SINCE long Western and Indian media, having specific motives to blackpaint Pakistan, is publishing false, fabricated and concocted reports that in Pakistan every month average 25 Hindu and Christian girls become victim of forced conversion and the document behind all this propaganda is a baseless article managed to be prepared by an NGO. The propaganda finds its roots in 2010 when some NGOs raised hue and cry that in Sindh every month almost 25 Hindu and Christian girls are abducted and forcibly made to embrace Islam and all such false reports depend on a single report of Rabia Ali, which is quoted in every article. All reports of NGOs rest on an exclusive unbelievable source of Rabia Ali. Allegations of forced conversion have no substantive backing except the Rabia Ali’s biased version. The reports of NGOs about forced conversions have no mention of names and addresses of victims and parents of forced faith conversion.
Having a blind faith in this report the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in 2010 included it in its own report and relying on this biased report published it on its website, furthermore this baseless report was endeavoured to be the base of every report published by NGOs of the West, having Indian orientation. Even United Nations, referring to this report of Pakistan NGOs “Shirkat Gah” published its own biased report to stir the worldwide awareness that every month from 15 to 25 girls are made forcible victim of faith conversion. Ironically making the source of this figure of 25 forcible conversions the Pakistan National Commission for Justice and Peace declared that in the past twelve years 1791 girls became the victim of forcible conversion of faith. In this report, the concrete base was the same concocted version of Rabia Ali. Human Rights Commission announced in 2014 that as per press reports collected by the Commission it has come to the limelight that almost one thousand forcible conversion cases have been traced. This report has been published in Human Rights Monitor. The website which was prepared for tracing authenticity had no details of conversions. When all such false reports of almost 25 forcible conversions became famous, then NGO’s namely Shirkat Gah, MSP and SAP made hue and cry and forwarded these figures in their reports.
Asian Human Rights Commission also published a report in 2015 that 25 forcible conversions per mensem have been proved in Pakistan, amongst them the Christian girls were also quoted to be in numbers 624. A concocted, baseless story was circulated in world media and it was portrayed as the most glazing truth of the world, while ground facts and realities were contrary to the count and figures as having no substantive single occurrence of forcible conversion. It is most embarrassing to note that as per fresh figures presented by the NGOs and Commissions the figure of 25 forcible conversions per month, all around the country, are now stated in one District Umar Kot only. All these false reports have been embellished by colorful charts. The ground reality is that so far only three to four couples have embraced Islam with their own sweet will and consent and with the presentation of these colourful charts, Pakistan has been black painted at the charge of forcible faith conversion. When proof of such reports is questioned then they revert back to the false report of Rabia Ali. All such reports are reproduced by biased Hindutva followers to malign Pakistan for conversion. Till 2020 almost 30 lac tweets were produced to malign Pakistan. BJP presented four Lac 14 thousand videos on social media with rating in lakhs.
A German Scholar Juergen Schaflechiner has unveiled the truth in his research in the words: that I worked for ten years on the issue of forcible conversion but amazingly I did not find a single case of it and still I am without a proof of even a single faith conversion occurrence. Going back to 15 years in history Khalid Rehman of Institute of Policy Studies published in Urdu the Elizbeth Liagin’s book Excessive Force: “Power Politics and Population Control” Elizibeth Liagin had published this book in 1996 and explored and unveiled the conspiracy of European countries and American lobby initiated different programmes with hidden intents to control the population initially of the world and consequently the Muslim population. This book disappeared from all book shops, all around the globe. Later on the Urdu Translation of Khalid Rehman, also, disappeared in the same mysterious way. Recently Khalid Rehman’s institution has published a report consisting of 78 pages, which unveiled the poisonous propaganda of West to malign Pakistan for forced conversions.
—The writer is a freelance columnist and independent analyst based in Lahore.