KARACHI: Police have booked a groom, a cleric and witnesses under the child marriage act in the case of forced marriage of a 12-year-old Hindu girl, who was allegedly kidnapped and converted to Islam in a southern Pakistan town.

The alleged forced conversion of Anjali Kumari and her forced conversion to Islam early last month sparked protests in northern Sindh province cities of Sukkur and Daharki.

Kumari, the 12-year-old daughter of a schoolteacher, had disappeared in late October from Sukkur. Rumours had suggested that she had eloped with Riaz Sial, a Muslim man who lives in the nearby neighbourhood of Kumari.

However, the girl’s parents and community, claimed that Kumari was kidnapped and forcibly converted.

Under much communal pressure, Kumari was handed over to the police who moved the girl to Karachi in a public sector shelter house for her safety and further judicial process after the registration of case of underage marriage.

“We have arrested the groom and witnesses and soon would round up the Nikah Khawan [the cleric who administered the marriage] and formally charge them in underage marriage act,” deputy inspector general of police Abdul Khalid Shaikh told Gulf News.

The police, however, did not invoke forced conversion of religion sections of the law so far, he said.

The case was pending in the Sindh High Court and the provincial chief justice is likely to take up the hearing after it was adjourned early this month.

Meanwhile, a large number of Hindus and other minorities expressed their deep concerns over being not given any representation at the recently formed Action Plan Committee, that will draw strategy to fight back terrorism in the country.

President of Pakistan Hindu Council, Chela Ram Kewlani, while commenting on the recent meeting of the committee, said that in the context of the current situation, that absence of representation of the affected community in the decision making was likely to yield any meaningful results.

The government last week formed the committee comprising major representatives of all the major political parties of Pakistan that would has drafted a 22-point agenda to weed out terrorism from the country.

Kewlani in a statement said that Pakistan Hindu Council considered the attacks against the minorities, forced conversion of religion and marriages as a formidable internal security threat.