The religious conversion and interfaith marriage of Simran Batra @ Aisha (after Islamic conversion) a born-Hindu minor girl in Pakistan suffering from delusion has been a critical case study in the allegations of human rights violations against minority non-Muslims of Pakistan, specially Hindus. The case has made its way to UN and RFERL reports.
The war of narratives revolving around the case have mainly two features:
At the initial stage of documentation Profilian has put equal weight on both these opposing claims only to move through ways of analysis to understand whether it is a case of Love Jihad or not. For that we had to go through the detailed story of Simran Batra we have curated through differing and opposing sources then after 45 days of thorough investigation we have a clear picture of the investigations.
It was August 17 of 2020 during the Covid Pandemic. The Batra family's distant relatives had suffered a tragedy and the family went to mourn there leaving their daughter with a local relative. Simran's elder brother Sunny Batra had called her over phone to come to their house and provide him with some cash he urgently needed to rent the mourning relatives. Sunny was supposed to stay at the bus stand.
While waiting for long, he failed to see his sister, he went home and found it locked and reached the local relative whom they had left Simran with. Sunny's aunt said that Simran had told her about the issue and left for their home to transport the cash.
After inquiring in the neighborhood, Sunny went to the local police station at Mirpur Mathelo for registering a missing complaint. The police refused to register the complaint and asked him to wait for some more time to see if Simran comes back.
Even before Sunny had left the police station premises, he received a call from the functionaries of Bharchundi Dargah, infamous for running the conversion racket, informing that his sister had been planning to convert into Islam and had approached them for guidance following which she had been instantly converted to Islam and married off to one Shakeel Ahmad Kori. The caller also called Sunny to come over and meet his sister.
When Sunny told the police about the call, the police suggested him to follow the Dargah's demands. Sunny didn't follow. The next day after the stipulated wait time was over, the police registered a missing complaint.
After two days Sunny received a call from the local Station House Officer (SHO) who is the local officer in-charge of the Mirpur Mathelo PS. He was asked by the SHO to come over to the Dargah where the police team is also present as a part of the investigation.
Sunny had a legal obligation to go there where he found that the police in a high media presence was recording the statement of Simran @ Aisha regarding her alleged abduction.
When Sunny Batra pointed out that recording the victim's statement at the property controlled by accused is a blatant breach of law, the police told him to shut up.
The police closed the case of abduction. It was the start of a rigorous judicial battle for Sunny Batra which ultimately reveals the dark side Pakistani judiciary and law which allowed blatant breaches of judicial protocols in this case.
To deter Sunny from his legal efforts, he was threatened both legally and illegally through fake lawsuits and murder of his cousin respectively.
Sunny's new ordeal was to get meeting rights of his family with his sister for which he repeatedly knocked the doors of Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and Pakistan judiciary. The SHRC closed the case with a very biased and defective order.
The Pakistani courts from local session court to the local bench (based at Sukkur) of the Sindh province's High Court exhausted Sunny of his time and money. The Pakistan judiciary repeatedly disregarded the globally acknowledged judicial principles of juvenility, legal protocols, open coercion and sanity of a victim. Through their blatant Kangaroo Trial the Pakistan judiciary had allowed Sunny with limited opportunity to meet the victim in long gaps.
Even then after waiting for several months, despite half-hearted court orders Simran was not allowed to meet her family. The court neither lodged nor allowed any contempt petition against the accused. Rather, through Simran @ Aisha the Shakeel Ahmad Kori had filed fake cases against Sunny and his brother Akshay of threats to Shakeel.
At the same time, two cousins of Sunny who supported him in his ordeal, were slapped fake blasphemy charges and one of them was murdered, gesturing of the consequences.
The Mian Mitho Gang started releasing propaganda videos of Simran @ Aisha speaking against her family in clearly tutored videos.
Ironically during the personal meeting with her family, Simran didn't reflect the kind of hatred she spewed in videos. Rather Ahmad's were seen threatening her to dictate her family her dissociation.
The open coercion was visible to everyone from Pakistani law enforcement, judiciary, media, human rights and even global media like RFERL and United Nations but her case along with other similar cases, were dumped in the cold storage.
The Profilian has access to exclusive medical records, court documents, Simran's call details with her family which shows that she has been going through serious human rights violations of coercive nature.
After examining the entire scenario, Profilian has reached the verdict that the case is a strong example of the Nikah Jihad. You can read the explanation here.
