Sialkot: A city moving towards religious extremism. By Dr. Emanuel. Adil Ghouri

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Although Sialkot is a small city in Pakistan, it is famous all over the world for its industry. It is one of the largest cities in Pakistan in terms of Christian population. When Christianity began in this country, the first person to accept the Lord Jesus Christ also belonged to this city. Just as Pakistan's two major cities, Faisalabad and Sargodha, remained victims of religious extremism in 2023, religious fanaticism also reached its peak in Sialkot in the first five months of 2024.  From January to May, six Christian girls faced forced marriage and religious conversion. Four minor Christian girls were abducted, converted, and forced into marriage.  According to Pakistani law, the Marriage Act 2015 and the Amendment Bill 2024, this is a crime with a clearly defined punishment, yet cases have not been registered against the accused and their facilitators involved in this crime.Which makes it clear that the local police are hostage to religious fanatics and are reluctant to arrest such suspects due to their pressure. After the Jaranaawala tragedy, a conspiracy to target the village of Kharota Syedan near Sialkot city, with religious extremism is becoming increasingly apparent. The village of Kharota Syed is located in the area of ​​Kotli Lohar police station. Approximately 300 to 400 Christian families live here. There is a Catholic Church here. There are many Pentecostal churches, including the Church of Pakistan.  For the past year, some unknown individuals have been writing insulting words on currency notes and throwing them away, and sometimes they have torn up verses from the Holy Quran and thrown them away, which could have led to a major incident following religious provocation. However, the above incidents were reported to the police in a timely manner and cases were registered against unknown suspects at the Kotli Loharan Police Station twice. Despite the efforts of the District Peace Committee and the local police, no pleasant incident could occur.  However, a Christian woman, Stella Bibi, was arrested on suspicion but later released after not being found guilty. Similarly, two Christian youths were kidnapped by extremists, physically tortured and forcibly converted to Islam. They were threatened with being arrested for blasphemy if they did not convert. Now on May 14, 2024, Stella Bibi, a Christian woman age 30 years  mother of a two-year-old child, has been re-arrested on suspicion in a previous blasphemy case and has been in the custody of local police for the past 10 days.  The police are afraid of the religious extremist group Tehreek-e-Labbaik, which is causing severe fear and panic in the area.Due to which no Christian political, social, religious leader is able to reach out to help Stella Bibi. If she is guilty, she should be punished, but not allowing her family and her lawyers access to the accused for an investigation on the merits is a violation of her basic human rights.  Christian NGOs working for human rights are not providing any help to Stella Bibi. Even her husband, Khurram Masih, has gone into hiding due to threats to his life. Their two-year-old child is helpless and in the house of a close relative.  Many organizations that solicit dollars from abroad in the name of prosecution are waiting for a case to be registered against Stella Bibi instead of helping her to prove her innocence and get her released from police custody so that they can highlight the FIR filed against her in Europe and America and create a drama of help in her name and earn dollars. The evidence on the basis of which Stella Bibi has been arrested is insufficient for the present case, but due to the lack of timely legal assistance and pressure from religious parties, it is very possible that a case will be registered against her and she will be sent to jail, and there is a strong possibility that she will have been transferred to jail before the publication of this column.  Although this article was published in newspapers in 2024, it failed to attract the attention of human rights organizations. Despite the passage of three years, the prosecution has not been able to prove its case. Despite this, Stella Bibi, imprisoned in the District Jail Sialkot, is still awaiting her legal right to bail

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