Re: Pakistani Hindus
A Pakistani family in love with India for its religious freedom
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Madina (Haryana), July 10 : Pathano Devi is enjoying her life sitting on a half broken cot outside her small hamlet in Madina village of Haryana.
Devi, a Hindu resident of Pakistan’s Lyallpur region, arrived in India a month back to meet her relatives. But now she doesn’t want to return to her homeland. Devi along with her husband and a 12-member family are camping in this small hamlet.
Despite their visas having expired a few days ago, the family refuses to leave for Pakistan due to the ill-treatment they had been receiving there.
Thousands of Pakistani Hindus are living in the border areas of India, especially in northwestern parts of Rajasthan and Punjab.
Devi alleged that she felt compelled to leave her homeland, as they did not have religious freedom.
“We came to India because of our religion. My children were asked to change their names in the school and convert .We refused to do so. We were asked to eat meat, which we were not ready to do. So we had to leave our home and even our land,” said Devi.
Lashkar Chand, one of the five sons of Devi, said they would never return to Pakistan as they were being treated as outsiders.
“We told the people there that we are going India to meet our relatives. But we are not going back as it will take sometime. We will not leave this country as there is great difficulty in living there,” said Chand.
The influx from Pakistan picked up during the 1971 war and the demolition of the controversial Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992.
Most Hindus and Sikhs migrated from Pakistan to India as many Muslims trickled to Islamic Pakistan during the bloody partition, which came along with independence in 1947. But still, there are a few Hindu and Sikh families who have preferred staying in Pakistan.
The border between India and Pakistan was determined by a British Government-commissioned report usually referred to as the Radcliffe Award after the London lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who wrote it. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of the colony, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.
Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-formed nations in the months immediately following Partition.
Once the lines were established, roughly 13 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Approximately 7 million Muslims went to Pakistan from India while about 6 million Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan. (ANI)