Religious discrimination is a never-ending issue in Pakistan which has been running since 1947 and there is no remedy till now. Pakistan has over 20 crores population, out of which around 3.4 million people belong to the Hindu community and the majority of which are Dalits or people of Scheduled Castes. Minorities have never been treated equally in the country.
In yet another shocking news, a 17-year-old Sikh girl was abducted recently in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The minor girl is reported to be the daughter of the head granthi of historic Panja Sahib Gurdwara in Hassan Abdal city.
The kidnapping occurred in Attock district’s Hassanabdal city, which is home to the famous Gurdwara Panja Sahib. The family fears that she may have been forced to convert into Islam and get married to a Muslim man.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) and the Delhi unit of the Shiromani Akali Dal approached the Pakistan High Commission and staged a protest there demanding justice for the victim and her family. They said that it would apprise the United Nations regarding the abduction and forceful religious conversion of Sikh girls in Pakistan. According to media reports, police have registered a case against “unknown abductors” after the girl’s father filed a complaint.
DSGMC chairman Manjinder Singh Sirsa said, “We gave a memorandum to the Pakistan High Commission to get the girl released from her abductors and reunited with her family. The Pakistani authorities have registered a case but that is just a sham as nothing happens afterward. My appeal to all religious bodies is that we should get united and demand the Pakistan government to get the girl reunited with her family as they have been claiming that they protect their minorities. We are not against any religion including Islam but against these kinds of people who abduct girls”.
If sources are to be believed that after the Sikh girl went missing, she reportedly sent a ‘WhatsApp message to her father telling him that she had contracted a marriage of her own will and converted to Islam’, said sub-divisional police officer Hassan.
The world knows that atrocities against Hindus and Sikhs have grown to a great extent in Pakistan since it came into existence. Minorities in the neighboring country are being persecuted. Thousands of minority girls have been abducted and forcefully converted to Islam and married off in Pakistan. No one can raise their voice against atrocities, if someone does, his voice is suppressed.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has been criticized a lot on social media for not taking stringent action against culprits. The accused have no fear for the law in the country and that is why they commit such heinous crimes in broad daylight.
FYI, thousands of such abductions happen every year and hardly one of two cases draw media attention and this is a reality about how minorities are treated in Pakistan, which proudly calls itself a democracy. We are leaving it to your imagination about how Hindus are treated harshly.
