Abdul Haq is a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

cleric and Pakistani politician. He is among the leaders of the

Bharchundi Shareef Dargah Dargah-e-Aliya Bharchundi Shareef Dargah is situated 8 km from railway station of Daharki (Urdu: ڈھرکی) in Ghotki District in the Sindh province of Pakistan The Bharchundi Sharif is notorious for giving protection to convert to Islam ...

, and a locally influential figure. Haq was elected to the

National Assembly of Pakistan The National Assembly ( ur, , translit=Aiwān-e-Zairīñ, , or ur, قومی اسمبلی, Romanization, romanized: ''Qaumi Assembly'') is the lower house, lower legislative house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Pakistan, which al ...

from Constituency NA-200 (Ghotki-I) as a candidate of

Pakistan Peoples Party The Pakistan People's Party ( ur, , ; PPP) is a centre-left, social-democratic political party in Pakistan. It is currently the third largest party in the National Assembly and second largest in the Senate of Pakistan. The party was founded ...

(PPP) in

2008 Pakistani general election 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

. He received 59,022 votes and defeated Khalid Ahmed Khan Lund, a candidate of the

Pakistan Muslim League (Q) The Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid e Azam Group) ur, ; ''Pākistān Muslim Līg (Qāf)'', Acronyms: PML(Q), PML-Q, PMLQ, "Q League") is a Conservative nationalist political party in Pakistan. As of the 2018 parliamentary election, it has a re ...

(PML-Q). Haq has been criticized for his alleged role in forcibly converting Hindus, including minors, to Islam. Haq has been the target of protests against these alleged conversions. He became the subject of media attention in 2012 after the high-profile case of Rinkle Kumari, a Hindu woman who converted to Islam in the Bharchundi Shareef Dargah. Members of the Hindu community stated that she had been kidnapped and converted against her will, and that Haq had sheltered her kidnappers and threatened her into saying she had chosen to convert. Following his alleged involvement in the case, the PPP selected a different candidate to contest the

2013 Pakistani general election General elections were held in Pakistan on Saturday 11 May 2013 to elect the members of the 14th National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies. The three major parties were the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) led by Nawaz Sharif, t ...

. Haq ran as an independent candidate in the 2013 general election. He received 69 votes and lost the seat to

Ali Gohar Khan Mahar Sardar Ali Gohar Khan Mahar (; born 1 September 1968) is a Pakistani politician who had been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan, from June 2013 to May 2018 and had been a member of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh from 1993 to 1999. ...

. In the same election, he ran for the seat of the

Provincial Assembly of Sindh The Provincial Assembly of Sindh ( ur, ) is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the Pakistani province of Sindh, and is located in Karachi, the provincial capital. It was established under Article 106 of the Constitution of ...

as an independent candidate from

Constituency PS-5 (Ghotki-I) PS-18 Ghotki-I () is a constituency of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh The Provincial Assembly of Sindh ( ur, ) is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the Pakistani province of Sindh, and is located in Karachi, the provin ...

but was again unsuccessful. He received 19 votes and lost the seat to

Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar (; born 1 January 1953) is a Pakistani politician hailing from Bashirabad village, Ubauro, Ghotki District belong to Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians. He was the Minister of Education and Literacy in the Provinc ...

. In 2015, he was invited by former Prime Minister and

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI; ur, , ) is a political party in Pakistan. It was founded in 1996 by Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who served as the country's prime minister from 2018 to 2022. The PTI is one of the thre ...

chairman, Imran Khan, to join his political party, a decision that was reversed after protests from the Hindu community. In 2021, Imran Khan's government invited him to a Council of Islamic Ideology deliberation on legislation around forced conversion, a move that was strongly opposed by activists and the Hindu community in Pakistan. On 9 December 2022, the UK government sanctioned Abdul Haq for forced conversions and marriages of girls and women from religious minorities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haq, Abdul Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Pakistani MNAs 2008–2013 Islamic fundamentalism Pakistan People's Party MNAs

See also

References