LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) Johnson Masih and his wife Samina were shocked when police in Lahore, Pakistan told them their 13-year-old daughter, missing since Feb. 19, had converted to Islam and married a Muslim.
A few days after registering a missing person report with police on Feb. 21, the investigating officer summoned them to the police station and showed them a Nikahnama (Islamic marriage certificate) issued by a cleric from Okara District, said Masih, a member of the Church of Pakistan.
“He said that Shakaina was now a married Muslim woman and did not want to return to her family,” Masih told Morning Star News. “According to the Nikahnama, her so-called husband’s name is Ali Bashir. We haven’t heard this name before. Shakaina is just a kid. She was kidnapped and taken to Okara, where they forcibly converted her and conducted the fake marriage to give it a religious cover.”