Ground Report: Pakistani Hindu Refugee Girl Gangraped in Jaisalmer for Refusing Nikah

Jaisalmer, Rajasthan: The story of a Pakistani Hindu refugee family now living in Jaisalmer epitomises the unbroken chain of Islamist aggression across the subcontinent.

In Pakistan, Jalaal Ram was hounded by maulvis pressuring him to embrace Islam. He eventually escaped to India. He rebuilt his life in Jaisalmer, raising a family.

Now, 25 years later, his daughter has been gang-raped by an Islamist gang after she refused repeated demands to convert and enter into a conversion-nikah with the gang leader.

Persecution in Pakistan

Born and raised in Rahim Yar Khan district of Pakistan’s Punjab, Jalaal Ram ran a small embroidery shop. His ordeal began when a local maulvi, Rashid Khan, mocked him for playing bhajans on his radio and tried luring him into Islamic religious fold with promises of “jannat” and “nikah with any girl he wanted“.

When Jalaal laughed it off, saying he was too content in life to want an imaginary jannat, the maulvi turned hostile, arriving with gangs to intimidate him.

After a few months, Jalaal married within his Hindu Bhil community. The pressure by the maulvi escalated.

It was 1999 when many young Hindus around him were leaving for India. Jalaal too decided to follow the same path: apply for a tourist visa.

Like thousands of Pakistani Hindus, he planned to enter Bharat as a tourist, then secure a long-term visa (LTV) and eventually apply for Indian citizenship.

The visa arrived in the year 2000. When word spread that Jalaal had got for a visa for himself and his wife, a mob of 21 men led by Rashid Khan stormed his house.

They looted cash and jewellery, demanded his passport, and threatened him with consequences if he did not “give him an answer whether he was accepting or rejecting Islam”. Jalaal knew rejecting was not an option.

He had already hidden his documents inside a clay matka. When confronted, he denied that he was going to India.

On the day he planned to leave for India, he borrowed 50,000 Pakistani rupees from his aged father-in-law and moved out of his house in the dead of the night, leaving behind his house and belongings.

In India, he settled in the border city of Jaisalmer, joining the long line of Hindu families from Pakistan who have chosen exile over conversion.

It has been 25 years since Jalaal Ram came to India, and he has never visited Pakistan again.

The above account was narrated by Jalaal Ram himself to Rashtra Jyoti this week.

A New Life in India – But Atrocities Continue

In Jaisalmer, Jalaal rebuilt his life. He raised two daughters and two sons, hoping his children would live free of the terrors he had escaped.

But even in India, Islamist violence has caught up with his family.

On 5 August 2025, his elder daughter, recently married, was allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a gang of migrant labourers. The FIR, based on the survivor’s complaint, names the accused as Mohammed Fazal, Mohammed Sabeer and Mohammed Qurban.

As per the complaint, the ringleader, Fazal, had stalked her since she was a minor, repeatedly pressuring her to elope with him and undergo conversion-nikah. Even as a minor, he has sexually assaulted her. She consistently refused and went on to marry within her community.

That choice became the trigger for brutal revenge.

Based on the complaint, an FIR (No 42/2025) was registered at Mahila Thana of Jaisalmer. It lists multiple grave offences:

• Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023: Sections 64(1), 64(2)(m), 70(1), 87, 351(2) (rape, abduction, assault).

• POCSO Act, 2012/2019: Sections 5(i), 6.

• SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989/2015: Sections 3(1)(w)(i), 3(1)(w)(ii), 3(2)(va).

The charges reflect both sexual assault on a minor and caste atrocity, since the survivor belongs to the Bhil community, a Scheduled Tribe.

The police have since arrested Shabbir and Qurban while Fazal remains absconding.

Refugees Forced to Agitate for Justice

Despite the gravity of the case, the family alleges deliberate police inaction. According to Jalaal’s statement to Rashtra Jyoti, local police delayed arrests for weeks, taking bribes to shield the accused.

Jalaal and other Hindu refugees have been staging a dharna outside the Jaisalmer DM’s office since 20 August.

Only after refugee protests escalated did the police register the case seriously and begin investigation, they say.

Rashtra Jyoti’s Intervention

The Rashtra Jyoti team met Jalaal Ram in Jaisalmer at the protest site, to stand by him and document his testimony. We have assured full legal and financial support for his battle for justice.

Jalaal’s struggle is evidence of an ongoing war on Hindu identity that refuses to end even when Hindus flee Pakistan for Bharat.

Rashtra Jyoti calls for swift punishment of the accused, strong protection for refugee women, and a national resolve to dismantle the predator networks that prey on the vulnerable and ordinary, trusting souls – often emboldened by foreign funding and driven by radical religious indoctrination.