Pakistan police drop investigation into Muslim man who ‘kidnapped Christian girl, 12, raped her and chained her up for five months’ because she ‘willingly married him’
- Police dropped investigation into 3 men accused of kidnapping Christian girl
- Farah Shaheen, now aged 13, spent five months bound in the Muslim man’s yard
- Authorities say she had agreed to marry the man and convert to Islam
- Her family claim police ignored their pleas for months before investigating
Pakistan police have dropped an investigation into three Muslim men accused of kidnapping a Christian girl, 12, before abusing her and chaining her up for five months.
Farah Shaheen, now age 13, was abducted from Faisalabad on June 25 and spent over five months in the yard of Muslim man Khizar Hayat, 45, who allegedly raped her.
Police rescued the youngster in Faisalabad on December 5 and found cuts from the shackles on her ankles from where she had been bound and forced to work in the man’s yard all day clearing animal dung.
Authorities dropped the charges against the man after the girl testified she willingly married her abductor.
Farah Shaheen,pictured left and right, spent five months bound in the Muslim man’s yard where she would work all day clearing animal dung
Investigators said they had dropped the charges against Hayat after Farah testified that she had agreed to marry him and convert to Islam, according to a report in The Times.
Farah Shaheen was rescued in Faisalabad last month with police finding cuts from the shackles on her ankles
‘Ms Shaheen confessed before a magistrate…that she married…of her own will and wants to live with him,’ investigating officer Musaddiq Riaz told the publication., adding that a police report suggested the girl was aged 16 or 17.
Farah’s birth certificate confirmed her age last June as 12, The Times reported.
The case has been taken up by Christian charities who claim a number of girls are being abducted and forced into marriage in Pakistan.
The girl’s father has dismissed the police report as a fabrication, and claimed that officers ignored his report of Farah’s abduction for months.
He has appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan for help.
Human rights groups say an estimated 1,000 Christian and Hindu girls are kidnapped each year and forced to convert to Islam.
Pakistan police have dropped an investigation into a Muslim man who is accused of kidnapping a Christian girl before raping her and chaining her up for five months. Above, Pakistani Christians protest against child marriage and forced conversion in Karachi
Aid to the Church in Need said the girl’s family made repeated complaints to the police but they were ignored for months.
Her father said: ‘[She] has told me she was treated like a slave. She was forced to work all day, cleaning filth in a cattle yard. 24-7, she was attached to a chain.’
The family say the girl was abducted on June 12 last year and she was raped multiple times.
Despite making multiple complaints to the police, the father was not able to file an official report until September.
He said police even made racial comments about him and threatened to charge him with blasphemy.
Aid to the Church in Need says the case calls into question how Britain is spending its overseas aid, with £302million going to Pakistan.
The charity says the government should do more to tackle Christian persecution abroad rather than support regimes where child marriage takes place.
Boris Johnson previously said he would grant asylum to Asia Bibi, a Christian woman in Pakistan who was charged with blasphemy and spent 10 years on death row.
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