A Hindu medical student from the Sindh region in Pakistan was found murdered in her hostel room on Tuesday with a piece of cloth tied to her neck and door locked from inside.
According to reports, the victim, identified as Namrita Chandani, a first-year medical student, belonged to Ghotki town in Pakistan.
She was found lying on a charpoy, a bed consisting of a frame strung with tapes or light rope, with a piece of cloth tied to her neck in her hostel room.
According to a tweet by ANI, Namrita’s brother, Dr. Vishal Sundar, who is a medical consultant, said that the preliminary medical checkup showed that she was murdered.
He said there are marks on other parts of her body too like a person was holding her and he also urged everyone to stand up for them as they are a minority in the region.
Yet another killing of a minority in Pakistan’s Sindh due to forced conversion pressure? Namrita Chandani, who belonged to Mirpur Mathelo, a taluka of Ghotki, was found lying on a charpoy with a rope tied to her neck while her room was locked from inside. Her brother speaks out. pic.twitter.com/OciA11wIca
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) September 17, 2019
However, police and authorities have made every attempt to downplay the incident by saying that she put herself to death though the family alleged that the student was murdered.
The victim’s brother said it was not a suicide, suicide marks are different and that he found cable marks were found around her neck. There are marks on her hand too. The marks are of cable but her friend had said that she found her with dupatta around her neck.
Following the incident, many people raised questions if it was a case of forced conversion. In recent months, a number of cases of forced conversion have come into the light, focusing on religious persecution in Pakistan.
The investigation into the matter has been initiated as soon as the incident was reported. When the investigating team has asked the victim’s brother if she was facing any problems, he said, there was nothing like that as he himself had spoken to her two days before the incident took place. He urged that the case must be investigated without bias and citizens should be a source of strength to his family.
According to a report by the United States-based Sindhi Foundation, every year around 1,000 young Sindhi Hindu girls between the age of 12 and 28 are kidnapped, married against their will and converted to Islam.
According to Pakistan’s own human rights commission, the cases of such abductions of Sindhi girls in Pakistan were around 7,430 from January 2004 to May 2018. However, the actual number is roughly calculated to be much higher as most of the cases go unreported.
