Running away from Pakistan

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Sad.

Running away from Pakistan – The Express Tribune

The recent comments made by Interior Minister Rehman Malik on the migration of Hindu families amidst increasing cases of violence and lack of protection provided to their community by officials in Pakistan have angered our neighbour. When asked about the supposed migration of 60 Hindu families to India from Jacobabad, Malik claimed that India was carrying out a conspiracy against the government by issuing 250 visas to Hindus. As it turned out though, these visas were issued by the Indian High Commission so that the renowned Maharaj from Jacobabad, Santosh Puri, could leave for Yatra (religious pilgrimage) to India with his followers. As a result, a large number of people from Balochistan, Jacobabad and Kashmore had arrived at the border to bid him farewell.
Rehman Malik’s comments, however, would have been equally offensive had it turned out that the Hindus were actually migrating to India. We have made religious minorities feel so insecure in the country that many are left with no option but to reluctantly leave. In Sindh, Hindu girls are abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and then married off to Muslim men. Even the Supreme Court, which intervened in one such conversion case, ended up siding against the Hindu community. In Balochistan, Hindus are leaving their ancestral homes in droves, sometimes moving to India and otherwise going to large urban cities like Karachi and Quetta because of the threats they face. Since the trader Hindu community is relatively prosperous, it has been systemically targeted for kidnapping. The police have shown very little interest in recovering people belonging to a minority group and so families have either had to pay exorbitant amounts in ransom or lose their loved ones.
The interior minister should know that the Indian government and Pakistan’s Hindu community are not involved in any conspiracy. The only conspiracy here is the one hatched by a state that refuses to protect vulnerable communities. With his insensitive and thoughtless remarks, Rehman Malik may just have made things even worse for Hindus here. The suspicion with which Hindus were viewed will only increase now that their loyalty to the country has been questioned, when in fact, we should be focusing our efforts to maintain a more amicable relationship.

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Rahman Malik and his conspiracy theories. Its about time Pakistan stood up for its minorities, diversity is power.

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ummmmm... is it only Hindus who want to run away from Pakistan? I thought a lot of Muslims want to do the same. But then, who is stopping them?

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Its our choice to keep our eyes or heads closed, but the situation is getting grave for the minorities with the passage of time. Leave alone minorities even Hazaras are fleeing the country, the boats towards Australia used to filled up with Afghans and Iraqis for the past few years andnow they include Pakistanis as well (our poor Hazara brothers). People are risking everything now to get out of the country, and the interior minister instead of acknowledging the problem and rectifying it is using conspiracy theories to cover his governments inaction and incompetence.

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^^^ It is convenient to blame RM, who is a clown, but not to blame Islamists & extremists who have turned the country into what it is today?

In a quest to turn the country into Islamic utopia they are making it hell for everyone who disagree with their backwardness.

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Yes but Rahman Malik being an interior minister is not blaming the islamists, he is again hiding behind conspiracy theories.

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Fikar not ..... once the Country is cleansed off minorities prosperity and a bright future waits

:(

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Brain drain is the most common thing in Pakistan nowadays . Don't you all remember that interview with Gilani that 75% of the Pakistani population wants to leave !!!

So yea its a fact that whoever will get a chance . . . will leave .

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not denying the unfair treatment of minorities(that just not include hindus, like Ali Syed said, Hazaras/Shias/Ahmadis as well)

but this is what I read in the news, that these 60-100 hindus families were not leaving Pakistan for good, but actually going for pilgrimage?

**LAHORE: More than 100 Hindu pilgrims, who did not leave for India the previous day, have now crossed the Wagah Border and are claiming they will return to Pakistan, Express News reported on Saturday.

**Just yesterday Hindu pilgrims, after protesting against immigration authorities and denying rumours of migration, had crossed the border into India.

The pilgrims leaving today too denied migration rumours and stated they were just propaganda.
“We live for Pakistan, we die for Pakistan,” said one pilgrim, adding that these rumors were futher spoiling Pakistan’s image internationally.

They reiterated that they would return after completing the pilgrimage.
Earlier, immigration authorities had stopped pilgrims from crossing the border in the wake of a rumour that they were migrating to India due to fears for their life and property in Pakistan.

Immigration authorities had initially informed the pilgrims that the interior ministry’s decision would be given in the next 48 hours. However, after a four-hour long peaceful protest, the Hindu pilgrims were allowed to cross borders.

there is a video on the page as well.
100 more Hindu pilgrims cross Wagah Border – The Express Tribune

RM is a fool, incomptence at its best., miserbly failed to take any action against these outfits. and these savages who are behind cleansing of minorities, LeJ, SSP etc, they all have strong ties with TTP. these extremists are like cancer in our society, the sooner we get rid of them, the better for the people of our country.

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I think some one is either exaggerating or lying.

‘Hindus migration reports aimed at maligning PPP govt’](http://dawn.com/2012/08/11/hindus-migration-reports-aimed-at-maligning-ppp-govt/)

KARACHI, Aug 10: A Pakistan People’s Party leader from Jacobabad, Mir Aijaz Jakhrani, has termed the reports of migration of Hindu families from Sindh and Balochistan to India baseless and said that such reports were actually aimed at maligning the PPP government.

Speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Friday, Mr Jakhrani, who is also a member of the National Assembly, urged the media to refrain from airing or printing such reports without verification.

Representatives of the Hindu Panchayat Mukhi Humesh Kumar Lakhani, Dr B.H. Khurana, Sindh Minorities Minister Dr Mohan Lal, Excise Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla and others were also present.

“There could be individual cases of people moving to India — and such cases of people not returning home after entering another country on visa happen all over the world — but the report of Hindu families migrating en bloc from Sindh is far from true,” he added.

The PPP leader said that every year members of the Hindu community went to India for ‘Teerath Yatra’ and this year too 247 persons had gone. The pilgrims included 20 people from Jacobabad. The others belonged to other districts of Sindh and Balochistan.

He said that the Hindu people were stopped from going to India at the Wagah border but they were allowed to go after the verification of their documents.

He said that between four million and 4.5 million Hindus were living in Sindh. He added that they considered Sindh their motherland.

They had no problem in discharging their religious obligation as they enjoyed complete freedom here, he said.

He said Jacobabad was included in those districts in the country where there was no serious law and order problem. “People are being kidnapped for ransom not only in Sindh but in other provinces as well.”

Mr Chawla said that pilgrims got visa for ‘Teerath Yatra’ and another group of 100 Yatris from Kashmore would be crossing the border in a day or two.

He said a meeting of Hindu representatives with the chief minister was scheduled for Saturday in Larkana.

Responding to questions, Mukhi Mahesh Kumar Lakhani said that the Hindu community did have complaints and grievances, as during the past 10 years some very outstanding doctors like Poran Mal were killed and incidents of kidnapping of Hindu girls had also taken place but the PPP failed to come to their rescue. Even ministers Mohan Lal and Mukesh Chawla never turned up before during the past four years to enquire about their grievances, he added.

This attitude had created a sense of insecurity among his community, he said, adding that they considered Sindh their motherland and would never like to leave it for India where a few families who had gone earlier on a Yatra visa were not treated even-handedly.

He thanked President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah for taking notice of their grievances and sending government representatives to Jacobabad.

Mukhi Lakhani was of the view that instead of meeting prominent members of the community it would be more appropriate if the government representatives visited those affected families whose members had been kidnapped, killed or were facing the threat of forced conversion.

Dr Khurana said the total population of Jacobabad was 300,000 and Hindus were only 20 per cent but they controlled 70 per cent business of the district.

He said people did migrate individually even from Karachi but not in groups, which went only for Yatra.

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RM may not be responsible for the lack of religious tolerance in the country, but he makes people angry with his insensitive and stupid bayaanat and choice of words. Its like when he thanked terrorists for maintaining Muharram peace.

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oh yes, how can I ever forget that statement, thanking taliban who killed 1000’s of Pakistanis!:mad: