Christian woman kidnapped and forced to marry a Muslim in Pakistan

A Christian woman in Lahore, Pakistan was kidnapped on Thursday, May 12 and was forced to marry the man who kidnapped her.

The British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) said 24-year-old Maryam Mushtaq was on her way home from school when she was taken. She was walking with her 11-year-old brother when two men suddenly grabbed her and took her away while threatening her younger brother. They put her in the back of a car and drove off.

Her mother, Mussarat, went to the police and reported the kidnapping. However, the police informed her after two days that her daughter had not been abducted but rather had gone away to get married. The man she married was named Muhammad Ali, who was also the one who had kidnapped her.

Ali apparently had gone to the police and shown them a certificate of marriage. In it, Mushtaq's religion was listed as Islam.

Mushtaq's mother was surprised with the police report because her daughter is a Christian and "there is no way she would give up her whole life and salvation to marry a Muslim man."

Mussarat also said that her daughter, who enjoyed close relationships with her siblings, had not shown interest in Ali before the abduction. If she had, her brother and sister would have known about it, Mushtaq's mother said.

"None of them have ever even seen him before," Mussarat informed the BPCA, according to Christian Today.

The BPCA condemned Mushtaq's abduction and forced marriage to Ali.

"Yet again an innocent Christian girl has been kidnapped and forced into Islamic marriage," BPCA chairman Wilson Chowdhry said. "We do not know the depravity or the brutality she has had to face but her entrapment will have a sordid edge to it no doubt."

Mushtaq had just gone back to study college so she could work as a teacher and support her family. Mussarat felt devastated at the thought of losing her, as her husband and another daughter died just a few years ago.

Chowdhry described Pakistan's justice system as "flawed" and "failing." He hoped that Mushtaq will be able to fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher one day so she can "teach love and hope where so much cruelty exists."