Morning Star News, November 20, 2024
Javed Masih saw his 18-year-old daughter for the first time in 5 months since she was forcibly married to a Muslim.
Sana went to a shop in Lahore on June 9 and did not return.
“Our search ended in mid-October. I got a phone call from a Christian in Balochistan who told me where she was.”
A Muslim woman named Hafsa had befriended Sana on WhatsApp a few days before she disappeared.
“She blackmailed her to meet in person without us knowing,” Masih said. “She sent her money and directed her to board two buses to cross into a remote village in Balochistan.”
“A cleric was called, Sana forced to recite the proclamation of conversion to Islam and marry an elderly Muslim man, a maternal uncle of Hafsa, under threats of violence.”
Sana’s family filed a report, but police did not try to find her.
The family asked others to pray with them and visited pastors and churches for prayer support. The answer came when Waseem, a Christian schoolteacher in Balochistan, phoned Masih to tell him Sana was in his village. A local Muslim politician had received information from a female family member about her and contacted him to help find her family.
“I do not know his name, but God used him to free our daughter from captivity,” Masih said of the politician.”
A legal team from Christians’ True Spirit (CTS) accompanied police and family to Balochistan to recover Sana on Nov. 14.