Now that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken a brief breather in his attack on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s so called ‘pogrom’ against Muslims, his Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has taken over and in a tweet has told the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that it “cannot stand by and let another ‘Gujarat’ happen.”
Why has Khan taken a respite from Modi-bashing is not known, but it appears that it could be due to diplomatic embarrassment caused by the exposure of ISI’s trickery of slamming India for ‘Islamophobia’ through using fake twitter handles created in names of members of influential Middle East royal family members.
What has made matters worse is that with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman unequivocally denouncing anti-India propaganda on social media, Modi has, once again taken the wind out of a bellowing Khan’s sails and that too, without even uttering a word. Readers would recollect that Khan has desperately been trying peddle his feeble tale of rising Islamophobia in India ever since the 2019 UNGA meet without any apparent success. Frustrated once again, for Khan to ‘retire hurt’ and take temporary refuge in the pavilion is understandable!
Two months ago, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan took to twitter for ‘warning’ the international community that – “Today in India we are seeing the Nazi-inspired RSS ideology take over a nuclear-armed state of over a billion people. Whenever a racist ideology based on hatred takes over, it leads to bloodshed.” In a second tweet sent just a few hours later Khan stated, “As I had predicted in my address to UNGA last yr (year), once the genie is out of the bottle the bloodshed will get worse. IOJK was the beginning. Now 200 million Muslims in India are being targeted. The world community must act now.”
Unfortunately, Khan’s attempt to be seen as ‘the man who saw tomorrow’ and a messiah for ‘oppressed’ Muslims in India evoked no response from the global community and the reason for this is simple- rather than be seen as a Nostradamus, his theatrics at UNGA made him look more like the boy from Aesop’s fable, who persistently cried “wolf!” Furthermore, Khan’s bid to emerge as the global saviour of Muslims was scuttled by US acting assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, Ms Alice Wells, who after Khan’s UNGA address said, “I would like to see the same level of concern expressed (by Imran Khan) about Muslims who are being detained in Western China, literally in concentration-like conditions!” Expectedly, Khan, the ‘hard-hitter’ chose to keep mum!
But why did he on the same day tweet that “I want to warn our people that anyone in Pakistan targeting our non-Muslim citizens or their places of worship will be dealt with strictly. Our minorities are equal citizens of this country”? Was it to convey to his“Nazi-inspired” Indian counterpart that unlike him, Khan had ‘zero-tolerance’ against persecution of minorities in Pakistan? It seems so, because just two months ago, while speaking with ministers in Punjab (Pakistan), Khan had told them, – “We have to especially show Narendra Modi’s India how we treat minorities and how they treat minorities.”
So, let’s see how does Imran Khan’s ‘Naya (new) Pakistan’ treats its minorities.
Since Khan assumed office of Prime Minister in August 2018, it would be fair to give him one year for putting in place his concept of ‘naya Pakistan’ in which minority communities would be safe. But on looking up the factsheet concerning safety of minorities from August 2019 onwards, the situation is far from satisfactory, as is evident from the following:
August 2019-A 19-year-old Sikh girl named Jagjit Kaur, the daughter of a ‘granthi (Sikh priest) of Gurdwara Tambu Sahib was kidnapped at gunpoint, forcibly converted to Islam and made to marry a Muslim man in Nankana Sahib area of Lahore.
October 2019- Protection of Minorities Bill criminalising forced religious conversions moved by Grand Democratic Alliance Member of Provisional Assembly Nand Kumar Goklani was rejected for the second time by the Provincial Assembly of Sindh Province. Ironically, though a similar bill was passed by the Provincial Assembly in December 2016, the Governor refused to give his assent on the insistence of the Provincial Government.
October 2019- Huma Younus, a 14 years old Christian girl was kidnapped, converted to Islam and forcibly married off to a Muslim youth. On a complaint by the parents and pressure from Christian community, the girl was produced before the Sindh High Court in Karachi. But in a shocking verdict, Judges Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Irshad Ali Shah who heard the case ruled that even if Huma was a minor, her marriage the alleged abductor was valid as per Sharia law, since she had already had her first menstrual cycle!
January 2020- Gurdwara Nankana Sahib (the birthplace of Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith) was attacked by an unruly mob.The crowds terrorised Sikhs with eviction threats, vowed to rename Nankana Sahib as ‘Ghulam-e-Mustafa’ and even threatened to demolish this Gurdwara, to make place for a Mosque.
January 2020- Mehak Kumari, a 15-year-old Hindu girl was abducted by a 28-year-old divorcee from her home in Jacobabad district in Sindh, made to convert to Islam and forcibly married to him.
January 2020- Bharati Bai, a 24-year-old Hindu girl was abducted in connivance with local police from her wedding venue in Hala in Matiari district of Sindh province, forced to convert and marry her abductor.
March 2020- Three minor Christian boys (two aged 12 and, one 14-year-old) who were playing video games at a local games arcade in Lahore were abducted by four motor bikers, taken to a secluded spot and sodomised.
April 2020- The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expressed serious concerns over reports of food aid during Covid-19 pandemic being denied to Hindus and Christians by a Karachi based NGO (Saylani Welfare International Trust) on the grounds that the aid was exclusively meant for Muslims. Though the authorities tried to cover up this incident by claiming that it was due to inadvertent confusion, but the very fact that an NGO duly recognised by the government chose to link religion with food distribution is frightening!
In its 2019 report on Pakistan, USCIRF had observed that “During the year, extremist groups and societal actors continued to discriminate against and attack religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadis, and Shi’a Muslims.” It also went on to note that “The government of Pakistan failed to adequately protect these groups, and it perpetrated systematic, ongoing, egregious religious freedom violations.” While this is extremely embarrassing, but what would have come as personal humiliation and setback for Khan is the USCIRF’s observation that “this occurred despite some optimism about the potential for reform under the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan.”
The fact that US Department of State has taken cognisance of USCIRF’s findings and re-designated Pakistan as one of the nine “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)” is the real reason why the crocodile tears that Khan sheds for the so called ‘persecuted’ Muslims in India cuts no ice with the international community. Khan needs to walk the talk in his own country before pointing fingers at others.
Prof Saswati Sarkar, an academic based in the United States of America has stated in a article that ” When Pakistan was created in 1947, Hindus constituted about 15 per cent of the population of West Pakistan (current Pakistan); by 1998 it is about 1.6 per cent – the population has declined by about 90 per cent in about 50 years. This decimation is the outcome of sustained legal and social discrimination ever since the creation of Pakistan”. Unfortunately, Indian authorities as well as media never raised this issue in past on global level forcefully. Contrary to that percentage population of Muslims in India kept on increasing. Global community must know who treats their minorities how. Global community either should ask themselves or Imran Khan that where these huge numbers of Hindus have gone in Pakistan in last seven decades. If Imran Khan says that the lost Hindus in seven decades in Pakistan have willingly embraced Islam. He should be asked that in which country so many Hindus have embraced Islam willingly on such a large scales in such a short time. It is very clear that religious discrimination, coercion, intimation etc were applied on Hindus for conversion in Islam by Pakistan. And Pakistan government aided in that process.