Pakistani Hindus have been facing harrowing time as they fight land sharks on one hand and forced conversion of their children and women on the other hand.
The News International, a Pakistani newspaper, has reported that Basti Guru Bagh, Mehmoodabad, has some Hindu families living in abysmal conditions but now even this may not last much long. This colony is near Junejo Town and Rehman Colony and falls under the jurisdiction of the Baloch Colony police station.
Now, the Pakistani Hindus living here say that influential land grabbers are trying to shove them out with the help of powerful Muslim clerics. Shiva Dharni told the Pakistani paper that electricity and water connections have been cut recently. Worse, the Hindu community believes that the land grabbers may even use fake blasphemy charge against them so as to push them out.
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The report notes that there also stands a Hindu Temple in Basti Guru Bagh, where “the non-governmental Initiator Human Development Foundation (IHDF) runs a school for the children of the settlement.”
IHDF head Rana Asif Habib is quoted by the Pakistani paper as siding with the Pakistani Hindus living here and calling their concerns genuine and also deplored the lightweight manner of Pakistani police in this regard.
He said:
“It is, in fact, a serious issue. It is the state’s responsibility to protect the vulnerable communities and stop non-state actors from pressurizing the utility bodies into cutting electricity and water connections. We have a number of recent examples of mob violence against non-Muslims, in which the police have totally failed to protect the members of the communities.”
Muslim residents who are living around Basti Guru Bagh are quoted as saying that the:
“Presence of Hindu settlements among Muslim-majority neighborhoods has been causing social and religious issues. It’s high time they were removed.”
The man, the report states “also maligned the characters of Hindu girls” while another Muslim resident said that the Hindu community has “illegally occupied the amenity plot reserved for the social welfare of the locals.”
Another Muslim resident however spelled out why the settlement has become problematic, he told the Pakistani newspaper that “he had been shown in a “vision” that a mosque was supposed to be where the Hindu temple currently stood.”
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