In a shocking incident, popular Twitter user and Pakistani rights activist, Rahat Austin, said that he was physically assaulted. While taking to Twitter, he wrote, “I am attacked by a Jihadi, having a Knife. I don’t know maybe from the middle east or somewhere.” Rahat said that he was stabbed with a knife and rushed to the hospital.
In a video message, Rahat Austin recounted, “Just moments ago, I was attacked by an Islamist jihadi. He had a knife and just by the way he said ‘Allahu Akbar’, I assume he is from a middle eastern country… Why do these people keep doing such things everywhere in the world? We are not doing anything wrong.”
He added, “I am just reporting cases of (severe) persecution, apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing…done by the government and people in Muslim-majority countries as a religious obligation. (They are) Doing it as part of religious obligation under ‘jihad’. We were 23% when Pakistan was made 70 years ago in 1947 and we are now 3% left.”
With a bruised faced caused due to the jihadi attack, Rahat Austin said, “It is a systematic genocide.” The rights activist concluded that the controlled media and government policies ensure that such cases never come to anyone’s notice and that now efforts were being made to stall his efforts to even report such crimes. “These are crazy people. I got attacked. If I didn’t myself, then, he would have beheaded me as they do with others. These are crazy people.”
Rahat Austin has raised his voice against the increasing incidents of atrocities against minorities in Pakistan. Everyone is familiar with the conditions of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan that minorities in Pakistan have been facing religious persecution since 1947.
Over the years, discrimination has spread on the basis of minorities and religion across Pakistan. Religious discrimination is a never-ending issue in Pakistan which has been running since 1947 and there is no remedy till now.
While fighting for equal status in a Muslim-dominated country, Austin brazenly holds a mirror to the Pakistani society. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan promised to eradicate this issue but hasn’t chalked out any plan for the minorities so far.
Recently Rahat Austin took to Twitter to share details of a Hindu girl named Miza Kumari, the daughter of Rattan Lal who was abducted, raped and forcefully converted to Islam to marry a Muslim man in Bahu Bhati village in Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan. The activist shared a video in which the girl’s parents, who belong to an extremely humble background are heard pleading for help. “
We’ll kill ourselves if our daughter is not given back. We are poor, we can’t fight with culprits, no one is helping us in Pakistan. We request, who watching this video to help us”, said the distraught mother of Miza Kumari in the video message.
Earlier, Prominent Balochistan activist Karima Baloch, who had moved to Canada in 2016, was found dead in Toronto, Canada. According to reports, the 35-year-old former student leader and activist who fled Pakistan in 2016 had gone missing from Toronto on Sunday. Police found her body drowned off an island near Toronto’s lakeshore. Reports suggest Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI might be behind the killing of Karima Baloch.
The article was sourced from Opindia.
