KARACHI: Human rights activists and members of Hindu community held a demonstration on Sunday, demanding protection to religious minorities and their worship places, and arrest of culprits involved in desecration of temples.

Speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club, they said the recent attacks on temples had been made under a conspiracy to create a sense of insecurity among religious minority communities and force them to leave their motherland.But such a conspiracy, which was bringing bad name to the country internationally, would be foiled, they said.

Raj Kumar and Amarlal of the All Hindu Rights Organisation, called for an end to desecration of temples and atrocities against non-Muslims and demanded the government should take a stern action against the culprits and award them exemplary punishment, according to law, so that it could act as a deterrent for others.

They demanded that cases be registered under the blasphemy laws against the people who had burnt down temples in different parts of the province. They said that it was a conspiracy of the miscreants who wanted to force Hindus to leave their motherland and migrate to alien lands, which they (Hindus) would never do.

They said that minor Hindu girls were kidnapped and then forcibly converted and married off to Muslim boys while the government did nothing to protect them and check the trend.

They demanded the government should ensure that no minor girl, under the age of 18 years, was converted and that such girls were recovered and returned to their parents.

Human rights activist and Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research chief Karamat Ali said the government should take corrective steps quickly so that the sense of insecurity spreading among the minority communities could be checked and minorities felt safe in their homes.

Expressing solidarity with minority communities in their struggle to get their rights, he urged them not to leave their motherland as the saner elements of society, which were in majority, were with them. He said that by leaving the country they (minorities) would be helping the miscreants’ designs to succeed.

Later, the members of Hindu community staged a demonstration outside the press club.