KARACHI - Thirty-seven Hindus comprising five families and residents of Thul, a small town in Jacobabad district, have left Pakistan for India to never come back because of security concerns.
Despite tall claims of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)s leadership, Sindhi Hindus murders, kidnappings for ransom and forced conversions are being carried out unabated across the province.
Like many other Hindus of the province who have migrated to other countries, the families of Dr Pritam Das, Kishor Lal, Ramesh Kumar and Lal Singh have left the country after selling their properties and houses and wrapping up their businesses.
Expressing serious concerns over the situation, Hindu leaders demanded the government on Friday to take notice of the incidents that are making the minority citizens leave the country and to ensure their security.
Its extremely sad that the Hindu families who have been living in the province for centuries are being forced to migrate from their ancestral motherland, Pakistan Hindu Seva (PHS) President Sanjesh Kumar said. The government is not providing them adequate security, he added.
Kumar said that Sindhi Hindus are well-educated, working as professional doctors and engineers as well as agricultural workers, and running major businesses. Their migration isnt only causing brain drain, but also giving the country a bad name abroad, he added.
Quoting the data collected by PHS, he said that around 10 to 14 Sindhi Hindu families have been migrating to other countries every month since 2008.
The Hindus who migrate to India are not getting equal rights there, but they have no other option because most countries do not encourage them to apply for immigration, he added.
According to the national census of 1998, Hindus, who were 2.7 million in number at that time, are the biggest religious minority in Pakistan; and most Hindu leaders claim that their population has crossed 7 million now, majority of whom live in Sindh.
Most of the middle- and upper-class Hindus in the subcontinent migrated to India after partition; the remaining were officially declared Scheduled-Caste Communities (SCC) by the Pakistani government.
Despite being in majority within a minority, these underprivileged Hindus are not being treated as equals by the government; even the PPP has been ignoring these lower caste communities since there are five Hindu PPP Sindh Assembly members, three of whom are ministers, but none is from the SCC.
Though the PPP allocated the provincial minorities ministry to a Hindu, Mohan Lal Kohistani, he has never taken any interest in providing security to the minorities; interestingly, when Kohistani was contacted, he said that he was unaware of migration of Hindus.
Kohistani has bought his seat with a hefty bribe and he does not represent Sindhi Hindus, so we demand the PPP leadership to remove Kohistani immediately, Pakistan Hindu Foundation President DM Maharaj told this scribe.
37 more disgruntled Hindus leave country for good | Pakistan Today | Latest news, Breaking news, Pakistan News, World news, business, sport and multimedia
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Pakistan needs a Jinnah but i dont think he exist today