Pak Sikh girl, allegedly forced to convert to Islam, refuses to go home: Court official

A teenage Sikh girl on whose issue Gurdwara Nankana Sahib came under attack last week refused to go along with her elder brother to her parents' house after meeting him in the Lahore High Court premises on Thursday, according to a court official.

During the proceedings on Thursday, Judge Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi accepted Manmohan Singh's plea to have a meeting with his sister Jagjit Kaur (18) in the court premises. However, his efforts to persuade his sister to return to her parents' home couldn't bear the fruit.

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Singh after his meeting with Kaur told the court that her sister "is under pressure and she should be given more time to make a final decision."

"After her 40-minutes meeting with his elder brother, Kaur told the LHC that she married to Muslim man Mohammad Hassaan of her free will after converting to Islam and she did not want to go back to her parents' house," the official told PTI.

Earlier, a report of the medical superintendent of Mayo Hospital, Lahore was submitted to the court confirming that Kaur is not a minor. It said her "age is above 18 years." Kaur was brought to the court from Lahore's Darul Aman (shelter home for women) in strict security.

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The investigating officer in the case of abduction lodged against Hassan by Singh requested the judge to adjourn the hearing for indefinite period as "law and order situation is tense in Nankana Sahib." The judge, however, adjourned the hearing till January 23 and ordered sending the girl back to the shelter home.

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The issue snowballed into a controversy after the family of Kaur, in a video message that went viral, claimed that she was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam by Hassan in September.

Last Friday, Hassan's elder brother Imran Chishti incited a mob in the name of religion and threatened to destroy the Gurdwara Janamasthan.

Gurdwara Nankana Sahib, also known as Gurdwara Janam Asthan, is a site near Lahore where the first Guru of Sikhs, Guru Nanak, was born. Chishti was arrested and charged with a non-bailable section of the stringent anti-terrorism act and blasphemy.

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