LAHORE, Dec 5: Minorities are living under pressure and facing discrimination in the country because of having been reduced to second clean citizens because of promulgation of discriminatory laws and constitutional amendments.
This was the general opinion at a three-day national workshop on the 'Status of religious minorities' organized by the Asr Resource Centre Minority Committee for Pakistan-India Peace, Friendship and Democracy which concluded here on Sunday.
Briefing newsmen on the findings of the workshop, Asr spokesman Sajid Ali said the research conducted by Advocate Shehla Zia had revealed that even the constitution discriminated against the minorities by barring them from holding the offices of president, prime minister, governor and chief of the army staff.
He said the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had declared people of a sect as non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment in 1984. The late Gen Zia had further alienated the minorities by promulgating the blasphemy law and the Hudood Ordinance and introducing amendments to the law of evidence.
He said the children of religious minorities had to study Islamiyat in government educational institutions because no arrangements existed for teaching their religions there.
He said: "The Hindus are harassed and intimidated and placed under observation whenever tension increases between India and Pakistan. Girls of minorities are often abducted in Sindh and married to Muslims and not returned to their parents on the grounds that they have embraced Islam."
He said the subordinate courts always convicted those accused in blasphemy cases on account of social pressure whereas they were acquitted by superior courts following appeals.
All 50 people accused of blasphemy from January to October were convicted by the subordinate courts and acquitted by the high court. People belonging to minorities were murdered and their places of worship attacked by fanatics, he said.
The Lahore Hindu Balmik Sabha president said there were a number of temples in the provincial metropolis, but only one was available for worship on Ravi Road. The rest had been encroached upon. Similarly the community did not have a place for the final rituals of the dead, and they had to take the bodies to other places.
He said the federal religious affairs minister had assured the community that its problems would be solved, but nothing had been done so far. Lora Lai District Council member Basant Kumar said his sister went missing on Oct 1, but the police did not register a case.
When the case was registered on the intervention of the district Nazim and the district coordination officer, a letter purported to have been written by his sister was received informing the family that she had embraced Islam. He said his sister was still un traced, while the family was being pressurized to withdraw the case.
Ali Baloch said the government had not honoured its commitments in respect of providing jobs to the inhabitants of Gwadar in the industries being established there. He said the inhabitants were not being allotted plots in the residential schemes being developed in Gwadar, and the fishermen were proposed to be settled some 50km away.
Asr Resource Centre Director Nighat Said Khan said the minorities were facing similar problems in India. She said the Pakistan-India Peace, Friendship and Democracy Committee had constituted four sub-committees for putting pressure on the governments for protecting the rights of the minorities.