Recent convert complains of religious discrimination

Laments case unnecessarily being given religious angle despite change of faith

LAHORE: The man, whose wife was abducted from court premises on January 20, has decided to file a case against the woman’s family for threatening him with death for marrying a Muslim girl.

Muhammad Sulman, who recently converted to Islam, has alleged the case was unnecessarily being given a religious angle despite his change of faith.



Wife of Sulman, who took the name after conversion, was kidnapped by her family members from the court premises where she had come with her husband to record a statement in a case. The couple had eloped and married in secret but the girl’s family registered a kidnapping case against the man under Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The woman’s family apparently agreed for reconciliation, asking the man to hand over their daughter so that they could marry them off in a traditional Muslim ceremony.



But the two sides came face to face at the district and sessions court, where the couple was present to get bail in the kidnapping case.

The family members forcibly took the woman with them and threatened Sulman with dire consequences if he dared to raise a hue and cry. While the man resisted the abduction, the family overpowered him and managed to escape from the spot.

Three days later, Sulman is clueless about the whereabouts of his wife. “How can I be a Christian when I have embraced Islam?” he lamented while talking with The Express Tribune on Sunday.

“They are trying to make the marriage an issue of religion claiming that I am not a Muslim.”

Sulman said some family members of his wife were threatening him with death if he did not divorce their daughter as he was still a Christian.



He said the woman’s mother was aware about their relationship and marriage as well and had advised the couple not to disclose their nuptials to anyone.

“My mother-in-law asked me to take her away and we started living in a separate house,” he said. “The other family members did not know about their marriage and registered an FIR against me for abducting their daughter.”

Sulman’s parents have already expelled him from the house for embracing Islam for marrying a woman from the Muslim faith.

The man’s first wife, a Christian, has also divorced him and barred him from meeting their children after his change of faith.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2017.