ISLAMABAD: Complying with the June 19 Supreme Court judgement on rights of minority communities, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has approved the setting up of a national commission on minorities to promote religious tolerance and harmony in the country.

This information was shared on Tuesday with a three-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk, which had taken up a matter relating to implementation of its June 19 directives.

Deputy Attorney General Sohail Mehmood told the court that the commission would prepare a policy on inter-faith harmony and review laws, executive instructions and procedural practices of the government or government agencies and autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies reported to be discriminatory to the minorities.

Besides, he said, the prime minister had directed the authorities concerned to adhere to five per cent quota reserved for the minorities in government jobs. The Ministry for Religious Affairs has written letters to all government departments to implement the prime minister’s directive.

But a PML-N member of the National Assembly from Tharparkar, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, also patron-in- chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council, has rejected the commission, terming it just eyewash.

Talking to Dawn, he suggested that instead of the ministry supervising the commission, the prime minister himself should head it. It should work on the provinces, particularly Sindh, where places of worship of the minorities were not protected and Hindu girls were being subjected to forced conversion.

The commission should also include representatives of all political and religious parties and legislators representing the minorities, he said.

In its judgment, the apex court had suggested that a national council should be set up to protect the rights of the minorities.

Deputy Attorney General Mehmood told the court that the commission would ensure that buildings of churches, shrines, temples, Gurdwaras and other places of worship of minority communities were preserved and maintained.

The commission will recommend to the government steps to ensure participation by members of minority communities in different aspects of national life. Religious and cultural festivals will be held to promote religious diversity.

The commission will look into grievances of members of minority communities and make recommendations to the government to address them.

It will take up cases of issuance of no objection certificates for the sale, purchase or transfer of communal properties of the minorities as provided under the Protection of Communal Properties of Minorities Ordinance 2001.

Moreover, Mr Mehmood said, the federal government had ordered the chief secretaries of the provinces and the Capital Administration and Development Division to develop appropriate curricula for schools and colleges to promote religious and social tolerance.

The ministries of interior and information and the four chief secretaries have been directed to take steps to discourage hate speech against the minorities in the social media.

In a related development, the Supreme Court has ordered to fix the matter relating to the Nov 6 Kot Radha Kishan tragedy in which a mob lynched a Christian couple over an alleged act of blasphemy by torturing and burning them to death in a kiln.

The date for placing the case before a bench has not yet been fixed but notices have been issued to the regional police officer and the district police officer concerned.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014