Every morning in Mirpur Sakro, in Sindh’s Thatta district, a group of young Hindu girls once walked to school with simple dreams.
They wanted what any ninth grader wants: to pass their exams, make their parents proud, maybe become teachers, doctors, or officers one day. Their school — Government Girls’ High School — was supposed to be that safe, hopeful place where those dreams found roots.
Today, those same girls say they are too afraid to go back.
“Our religion is not good.”
“My name is Roshni. I’m studying in Class Nine in Government Girls High School in Mirpur Sakro.”
She speaks in front of cameras at the Mirpur Sakro Press Club, her classmates sitting tightly packed beside her — Nandni, Washita, Naveeta, Chandni. They are just teenagers, but their words carry the weight of something no child should have to experience.
“Our headmistress pressures us every day to convert to Islam,” Roshni says. “She says our religion is not good. She repeatedly pressures us to recite the Kalima and convert.”
The accusations are chilling. According to Roshni, their headmistress told them:
“You worship idols who will not be able to help you on doomsday. You and your parents will rot in hell. You will go to heaven if you convert.”
For a child, faith is often closely tied to family — to the way their grandparents pray, the stories their parents tell, the festivals they celebrate together. To hear that the faith that shapes your home, your festivals, your identity will lead your parents to “rot in hell” is not merely offensive; it is terrifying.
And this fear, these girls say, is coming from the person who stands at the front of their classroom.
“Convert and change your name…”
Chandni, another student, says the issue goes beyond words — it has entered school life in quiet but painful ways.
“Recently, Hindu students wanted to participate in a school event,” she recalls. “But the headmistress refused to let us participate. She told us, ‘Convert and change your name, then you can participate; otherwise, people will object to the names of Hindus participating in the event.’”
Imagine being a 14- or 15-year-old girl, watching your classmates rehearse for an event you’re not allowed to join — not because you’re lazy, not because you broke a rule, but because of what you believe in, because of the name your parents lovingly chose for you.
These girls are not asking for special treatment. Their demand is heartbreakingly simple:
They just want to go to school without being asked to abandon who they are.
“We will not attend school,” they say, “until the authorities remove headmistress Gul Naz Gul.”
A headmistress under fire — and her defence
On the other side of this deeply polarising story stands headmistress Gul Naz Gul, who has publicly and forcefully denied all allegations.
“I refute the allegations levelled against me,” she says at a separate press conference in Dhabeji, Thatta. “In my entire 13 years of tenure at the school, scores of non-Muslims have studied, and they have not made any such complaints against me.”
To her, the charges are not just wrong — they are an attack.
She claims she is being targeted at the behest of “influential persons” and says the accusations are part of a propaganda campaign. She recounts how Saavan, the father of some of the girls, came to confront her. She says she even brought other students before him to show that no harassment was taking place.
“I am being blackmailed,” she claims. “They threatened me that they would not let me keep my position at school. I don’t fear being removed from my position… but they cannot threaten or harm me.”
In her telling, she is a teacher doing her job, focused only on education, and religion is irrelevant to her duties.
Two narratives now exist in painful opposition: a group of girls saying they were pressured to renounce their faith, and a headmistress insisting she is the victim of a fabricated campaign.
Between them stands a community shaken to its core.
A father’s fear
In the middle of this storm is Saavan — not a politician, not a media star, but a father.
“I have no personal grudge against the school in charge, Gul Naz Gul,” he insists. “I am merely bringing to light what my daughters have complained to me about this teacher.”
He speaks of fear that has seeped into the lives of minority families in the area.
“We are already in fear, and that is why we were not sending our children to school,” he says. “Earlier, some parents of non-Muslim students did not want to send their children to school, but I convinced them. However, the headmistress continued her coercive behavior with the non-Muslim girl students.”
This is the cruelest part of the story: the very place that was meant to be a ladder out of insecurity and marginalisation — a government school — has become, for these families, a place of dread.
Old tensions, new wounds
The issue does not exist in a vacuum. There are reports of an ongoing dispute between the headmistress and Saavan, who serves as chairman of the school management committee.
Gul had recently objected to his decision to include female students in a school event in Bhanbhor, allegedly without proper permissions. A heated argument reportedly took place. The next day, the allegations of forced conversion were brought to the press.
Did personal conflict set the stage for a public explosion? Or did a long-ignored pattern of discrimination finally find a voice? The truth now lies in the hands of an inquiry committee.
The weight of an inquiry
After the girls’ press conference went viral on social media, Provincial Education Minister Sardar Shah stepped in. He ordered the District Education Officer of Thatta to investigate the matter, promising that the truth would be brought to light.
“Minorities are the beauty of Pakistan, and we won’t tolerate any abuse against them,” he wrote on X. “Minority students should feel at peace; we’re committed to their well-being.”
A five-member committee of senior education officials has been formed. They will conduct an inquiry and are expected to submit their report within three days.
On paper, this is a routine administrative response: form a committee, hold a hearing, file a report.
But for the girls of Mirpur Sakro, for their parents, for the headmistress whose reputation and career now hang in the balance, this is not routine at all.
For them, these days feel like a verdict on what kind of country they live in — one where minority children can step into a classroom without fear, or one where their faith is treated as something to be corrected.
Beyond Mirpur Sakro
Whatever the inquiry concludes, this case has already highlighted something deeper and more painful: how fragile the sense of safety is for minority children in some schools.
A child should never have to choose between an education and their faith.
A teacher should never have to work under a cloud of false allegations — if they are indeed false.
The responsibility now lies not just with one committee, one minister, or one district officer. It lies with everyone who believes that a classroom should be the one place where a child’s name, religion, and identity are not a barrier, but simply part of who they are.
In Mirpur Sakro, a group of girls has done something incredibly brave: they have spoken, on camera, with their faces uncovered, about what they say happened to them.
Whether their story is ultimately upheld or disproven, one thing is certain — their voices must be heard with seriousness, empathy, and justice.
Because the measure of an education system is not how loudly it claims to protect minorities, but how safe the smallest, most vulnerable child feels when she walks through the school gate.