“I am 110% sure that I converted on my own will,” said a 28-year-old woman from Jammu and Kashmir. She had converted to Islam from Sikhism ...
“I am 110% sure that I converted on my own will,” said a 28-year-old woman from Jammu and Kashmir. She had converted to Islam from Sikhism this year and married a man of her choice who is also Muslim. “There are lots of rumours about forced conversion but I would like to say that nothing of the sort happened to me,” she said.
Over the last few weeks, two cases of Kashmiri Sikh women converting and marrying Muslim men have turned into huge controversies, after their families and political leaders claimed – without evidence – that they were forcibly converted. In both of those cases, the Muslim men are now in jail, and in one, Sikh community leaders reportedly forced the woman to marry a man from their community.
The incidents have stoked political and communal sentiments in the sensitive region, where Sikhs are a minority – prompting the 28-year-old woman and her husband who currently reside in Budgam to take pre-emptive action.
In May, facing opposition from the woman’s family, the couple decided to approach the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to seek protection against her family from the possibility of implicating her husband in false cases. “We have struggled a lot...
