With the coronavirus pandemic building upon the lives of people, almost all the countries have been urging people to stay indoors in order to help them contain the spread of the virus. In Pakistan, however, many of the citizens home been made homeless.
In Bhawalpur of the Punjab province in Pakistan, a basti of the minority Hindu community was bulldozed to the ground as the temperature soared towards unbearable heat. The shocking thing, however, is that the demolition of the roofs and walls of the minority community was done under the watch of the Housing Minister of the Imran Khan government, Tariq Bashir Cheema. He was accompanied by the country’s principal information officer, Shahid Khokhar.
The Painful imagery was telecasted across the news media as the bulldozer continued to razing the building as helpless men, women, and children pleaded and cried for mercy. The incident comes days after the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan slammed the government for its continued failure to safeguard its minorities.
Not a one-off incident
A similar incident occurred recently in the Khanewal district of the Punjab province. The houses and a graveyard that belonged to the local Christian community were destroyed by a politician who allegedly belonged to Imran Khan’s political party – Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Pakistan isn’t new to being the perpetrator of violating Human rights in the country. Several incidents from the Sindh and Punjab province of Pakistan are being reported where allegedly the majority community Muslims have forcibly abducted Hindu minor girls and have converted them against their will.
However, this is not restricted to the current government of Pakistan led by Imran Khan. Over the years, several governments of Pakistan have found to be violating human rights under several outstanding instances where the minority community has been targeted.
The capital city of Islamabad has a reputation of discriminating against its people on religious lines and it is also been accused of targeted violence against the minority community of the country. The kind of violence includes mass murders, extrajudicial killings, abduction, rapes, forced conversion to Islam, etc. These incidents paint a picture that Pakistani Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadiyyas, and Shias are in grave danger in the country.
Source: The Times of India
