When a Hindu temple was attacked in November, 2021, in Pakistan, the courts ordered the attackers to pay fines. However, clerics demanded that the Hindu community, which was a victim in this case, pay the fines on their behalf. They forced Hindus to do so. This is what being zimmi looks like in the Islamic State.
Mob Targets Ganesh temple
A prominent Ganesh temple in the village of Bhong in Punjab’s Rahim Yar Khan district was severely damaged on August 4, 2021. A mob of about 250 people attacked it after a minor Hindu boy accused of desecrating a local madrasa was released on bail. Not only was the temple vandalised, but most of the Hindu families in the village were forced to leave their homes.
An incident that had taken place in Tharparkar, Sindh, on July 26, 2021, in which one Abdul Salam Abu Dawood, who worked at the Thar Coal Project, forced a Hindu boy to chant Allah hu Akbar (God is Great) and abuse Hindu deities.
Brute Majoritarianism on Display
In July, 2021, construction of a Hindu temple in Pakistan’s capital city Islamabad was halted after a vehement hate campaign was launched by Muslim clerics and their followers. Officials told a court that the Pakistani Government had cancelled the plot allotted to the Hindu community.
However, the Government came under severe criticism from the liberal section of Pakistan, forcing authorities to declare that they were reversing the cancellation of the plot.
In an ugly display of brute majoritarianism, a widely followed cleric in Pakistan has made a video of his visit to a local Hindu temple where he relentlessly mocks Hindus and their religious customs.
Temples Attacked in Pakistan in the Past Two years
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The video, uploaded in 2021 on the cleric’s YouTube channel that has a massive 2.5 million followers, has garnered more than 18 lakh views.
Tortured Over Water
Farm workers from a Hindu family in Pakistan's Rahim Yar Khan, a city, have landed in trouble for taking water from a mosque tap. In September 2021, some village landlords tortured and held them hostage for "violating the sanctity" of the place. When the family went outside a nearby mosque to fetch drinking water from a tap, some local landlords and their men beat them up.
When they were returning home after unloading the picked cotton, the landlords held them hostage at their 'dera' (outhouse) and tortured them again.
Notorious Muslim Cleric Conducts Conversion of Minor Hindu Girl
On March 11, 2021, a video of the conversion ceremony of a 13-year-old girl named Kavita Oad from the Kandhkot area of Sindh, Pakistan had gone viral on social media.
She had reportedly been abducted, forcibly made to embrace Islam. In the video, the minor girl could be seen sitting on the ground with a mob surrounding her and recording the video of the conversion ceremony. The conversion ceremony was facilitated by notorious cleric Mian Mithoo of the Bharchundi mosque. Mithoo is a hardline cleric and politician and is notorious for systematically carrying out kidnappings and forced conversions of poor Hindu girls.
Hindu Journalist Gunned Down
In March 2021, Ajay Lalvani, a reporter with a private Royal News TV channel and an Urdu language newspaper Daily Puchano, died after he sustained bullet injuries in stomach, arm and knee.
He was sitting at a barber shop in Sukkur city when assailants on two bikes and a car drove by and opened fire. Lalvani was rushed to a nearby hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
Kidnapped Girl Pleads for Help
Meanwhile, in a video that went viral on social media, a Hindu girl in Pakistan who was kidnapped and forcefully converted to Islam in February 2021 was seen pleading for help.
On February 13, 2021, Reena Meghwar was abducted from Keriogjar, Badin, converted to Islam, and then married to a man. The family had lodged an FIR but the police failed to rescue the girl.
In the heart wrenching video, Reena Meghwar is seen crying and says she wants to go home. Voice of some other women can be heard in the video who did not offer any help to the girl.
Minority Women Made sex slaves and Brides to Please China
In a more serious offence of violating human rights of minorities, Pakistan is guilty of marketing and moving Hindu and Christian women as “concubines” and “forced brides” to China. In 2020, according to the US diplomat for religious freedom, Samuel Brownback, it was happening "because there's not effective support and there's discrimination against religious minorities that make them more vulnerable."
Washing Sins of Muslim Men Who Eye Hindu Women and Minors
A misleading report prepared by Pakistani intelligence in July 2020 on ‘trend of conversion of Hindu girls into Islam’ mischeviously concluded that all cases happened by consent as the girls fell “in love with the Muslim boys”. The cases include kidnapping-conversion of minor girls. The report says the trend is happening as Hindu girls are “going out for study and jobs and falling in love with Muslim boys”.
An image of a poster in 2020 displaying a Hindu-hate message allegedly pasted across Lahore by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, had appeared on social media in Pakistan.
“Hindu baat se nahin laat se manta hai” (Hindus understand not through words, but through a kick), say the posters featured in social media posts, written in Urdu.
Rising Radicalisation Needs to Be Stopped
Out of the uncountable instances against the Hindus in the neighbouring countries, the above instances are just the tip of the iceberg. It suffices the need to protect and raise the voice against the rising radicalisation.
The recent move of India to apprise the United Nations about ‘Hinduphobia’ has turned prophetic. This aligns with the fact that it doesn't confines to India but all the countries where Hindus reside.
