Police file case against man’s brothers for kidnapping him

Saino Mal, who accepted Islam and married a Muslim woman, is missing since Thursday.

SUKKUR: A member of the Hindu community, Indar Lal, was arrested by Daharki police, Ghotki, for having allegedly kidnapped his brother, Saino Mal aka Muhammad Ibrahim. 

Mal, a resident of Daharki, had embraced Islam and married a Muslim woman, Ruqiya Ghulam Qureshi, on September 17.

Ruqiya told police officials that her husband had been missing since Thursday. She alleged that Ibrahim’s brothers, Ashok Kumar, Indar Lal and Guddu, didn’t support his decision to convert to Islam and had been forcing him to divorce her. On her request, police registered an FIR against the three brothers and a friend of theirs, Hari Lal, charging them of kidnapping Ibrahim. Law enforcers have arrested Indar Lal and are conducting raids to locate the other three men.

Ibrahim has two children from his first marriage to a Hindu woman. Ruqiya told The Express Tribune that she met him eight years ago through a fateful missed call on her cell phone. She called him back and over time, their friendship grew. She learnt about his first marriage, but was still intent on tying the knot with him.



“I asked him to accept Islam and marry me,” said Ruqiya. “We lived in a rented house in Ghotki for the first two months after marriage and shifted later to New Pind, Sukkur.” Ruqiya alleged that her brothers-in-law used to call and threaten her. “They would also call my husband asking that he meet them. But he would refuse to do so.”

Ruqiya has now sought refuge with Azam Suhriyani, a social activist, and said she is desperately seeking her husband as she is pregnant. Suhriyani said that he had been moved by the girl’s story. “She is like a daughter to me and can live in my house as long as she pleases.”

Before the FIR was registered, Ibrahim’s brother, Ashok Kumar, who is a tailor by profession, told The Express Tribune that he didn’t even know about his brother’s second marriage.

“If he doesn’t care about his own wife and children then why should we chase after him?”

He explained that the three brothers had stopped contacting Ibrahim after they heard that he had converted to Islam. “We have not been threatening her,” he said, when informed of Ruqiya’s allegations against the brothers. “Rather, she has been threatening us.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2013.