PESHAWAR: Every time someone walks into his pharmacy in Peshawar, Amarjeet Singh prepares for the worst.

“I don’t know if it’s a customer or an assailant who will reach out for his gun,” Amarjeet said.

Easily recognised because of their colourful turbans, members of the Sikh community in Pakistan say they have been singled out and frequently attacked by militants.

Like other minorities, Sikhs live in a paranoid and hostile world where every stranger is assumed to be an attacker.

Many Sikhs see Pakistan as the place where their religion began: the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, was born in 1469 in a small village near Lahore.

Wearing a large pink turban and sitting cross-legged in his shop, Amarjeet, 40, said the community was so afraid that most people stopped showing up for prayers in the Gurdwara.

“I have run this business for last 22 years. Never in my life have I experienced such insecurity,” he said.

“Around 60 per cent of our shops are closed due to security concerns. Many parents are not sending their children to schools.”

Last month, Harjeet Singh, another Sikh shopkeeper, was shot dead at his herbal medicine shop in Peshawar, which is home to most of the country’s 40,000 strong Sikh community.

Pamphlets praising Islamic State, a group fighting to set up a caliphate, have recently appeared in Peshawar.

According to police, at least eight Sikhs have been killed in the past year and a half.

At least 500 Sikh families have recently migrated to Peshawar due to a military operation against militants in the North Waziristan along the Afghan border.

“They were forced to leave their established businesses ... They were also doing well in Peshawar until the latest wave of attacks,” said Haroon Sarab Diyal, chairman of the All Pakistan Hindu Rights Movement, a group advocating Hindu and Sikh rights. “Sikhs are not sending their children to schools, especially boys who stand out due to their headdress.”

A multi-story shopping mall in Peshawar, Orakzai Plaza, where Sikhs own a range of shops, stands abandoned after Sikhs closed their businesses for security reasons.

Senior police officer Najeebur Rehman said police were regularly patrolling Sikh areas and were deployed at the main temple.

“Pakistan is land of the pure for us, it is the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. It’s our motherland, we love this soil. Why are we being targeted here?” asked Sardar Charanjit Singh, a Sikh elder.

“People are very frightened, it’s a time of sorrow for us.”

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2014