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Updated: Mar 24, 2019 22:25 IST

A fresh row appeared to be brewing between India and Pakistan on Sunday after external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj asked India’s envoy in Islamabad for details about the alleged abduction and forced conversion of two Pakistani Hindu girls in a tweet that triggered an exchange on social media with a minister of the neighbouring country.

Reports said that two Hindu teenage girls, 13 and 15 years old, were allegedly kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam before being married to Muslim men in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday ordered the provincial Sindh and Punjab governments to retrieve the two girls, who were said to have been moved to Rahim Yar Khan from Ghotki in his country’s south-east.

In videos circulating on social media over the last two days, the father and brother of the girls can be heard saying the two were abducted and forced to change their religion.

In another clip, however, the minor girls appear to say that they have accepted Islam of their own free will. Hindustan Times could not independently verify the video clips.

While tagging a media report about the incident in Pakistan, the Indian external affairs minister on Sunday tweeted that she had asked the Indian high commissioner in Islamabad to send a report on the matter. Pakistan’s information minister Fawad Chaudhry responded to her tweet, saying it was his country’s “internal issue”.

Swaraj hit back in another tweet: “Mr Minister, I only asked for a report from Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad about the kidnapping and forced conversion of two minor Hindu girls to Islam. This was enough to make you jittery. This only shows your guilty conscience.”

To this, Chaudhry responded by tweeting: “Madam Minister I am happy that in the Indian administration we have people who care for minority rights in other countries. I sincerely hope that your conscience will allow you to stand up for minorities at home as well. Gujarat and Jammu must weigh heavily on your soul.”

Non-Muslims constitute about 3% of the 190 million people in Pakistan, about 7.5 million of them from the Hindu community. The minority populations are concentrated in some areas and they are said to have a crucial impact in a few seats during elections in the Sindh and Punjab provinces.

The incident comes weeks after the Pakistani government sacked a provincial minister for making offensive remarks about Hindus amid tensions with India following a suicide bombing in Kashmir’s Pulwama that killed 40 troopers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) claimed responsibility for the attack that was carried out by a 22-year-old Kashmiri man.

In an operation carried out on February 26, fighter jets of the Indian Air Force bombed a site in Balakot, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, known to be a militant training centre of the JeM. The air strike triggered a sharp escalation in tensions with Pakistan, which attempted an air operation in retaliation.

The tensions eased after Pakistan released Indian Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, whose jet was shot down in a dogfight over the Line of Control on February 27.

In a Twitter post in Urdu on Sunday, Pakistan’s information minister Chaudhry said that the Prime Minister of his country asked the Sindh chief minister to look into reports that the two Hindu girls had been taken to Rahim Yar Khan in Punjab. Chaudhry said that Khan also ordered the Sindh and Punjab governments to devise a joint action plan in light of the incident, and to take concrete steps to prevent such incidents from happening again.

“The minorities in Pakistan make up the white of our flag and all of our flag’s colours are precious to us. Protection of our flag is our duty,” he said.

The Hindu community in Pakistan has carried out massive protests, calling for strict action to be taken against those responsible, while reminding Imran Khan of his promises to the minorities of the country. During his election campaign, Khan had said his party’s agenda was to uplift the various religious groups across Pakistan and said they would take effective measures to prevent forced marriages of Hindu girls.

(With inputs from PTI)