Pakistan aids extremists against minorities

Pakistan is openly aiding extremist groups like Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a rabidly Sunni group, despite its wanton destruction of religious places belonging to minorities, killing of minorities, levelling false blasphemy accusations and now even direct threats to the Chief Justice of Supreme Court.

The TLP and similar extremist groups have been harassing the minorities, specially the Hindus, in many other ways. Hindu girls and women are picked up at random, raped, converted to Islam before being married to Muslim men. According to local media reports, between January 8 and February 8 this year, about 20 Hindu girls were subjected to physical abuse with 12 cases of forced conversion and marriages to their kidnappers, four rapes, two attempted molestations, one missing and one attempted murder for refusing to marry.

The state, which has been quick to punish journalists criticising judicial verdicts, chose to look the other way when TLP led a series of protests against the Supreme Court Chief Justice who had passed a judgement in favour of Ahmadis. They called the judge an `enemy of Islam` in protests held at more than 50 mosques in Punjab. Some of the protesters even threatened the Chief Justice.

The TLP, a group which was born out of the killing of former Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer, over blasphemy, has been hounding the minorities since August 2015. Be it the Ahmadis or Hindus or Christians, minorities have been suffering at the hands of the Sunni extremist groups and their supporters all these years with the state siding with groups like TLP.

Now extremists are targeting them with guns, at random and without any fear. The state remains callously indifferent to the increasing number of killings across the country. Many of the killings are carried out by TLP which enjoy the patronage of several political parties, the state and the army.

In February this year, two unidentified armed men on a motorcycle shot a Hindu businessman in Kalat town in Balochistan. The businessman owned a wine store. In the attack, his grandson was seriously injured. The attackers were members of TLP. The businessman, Leila Ram had received a ransom note for Rs 10 crore from TTP twice. The family had prompted the matter to the police but with no action.

During the last week of February, the body of a Christian rickshaw driver, Washal Maseeh, was found near a canal in Faisalabad. He had been missing since a week ago. His family said he had gone out from home on February 18 at the call of a customer. Although the family had reported the matter to the police the same night when he failed to return home, no police action took place until his body wrapped in a plastic sheet was found lying near the canal. The family had also reported that Washal had alterations with TLP members over rickshaw charges. He was then threatened with blasphemy charges, a common tactic on the part of TLP members to terrorise minorities.

The TLP has been threatening the Ahmadi community by damaging their religious places, destroying their graves and refusing to follow Islamic traditions. The Ahmadi community, like the Hindus and Christians, live in constant fear of being attacked, harassed and persecuted by these groups which enjoy tremendous clout with the state agencies. This state complicity is reflected in a recent government notification warning media organisations and NGOs against reporting on atrocities committed by TLP and similar extremist groups.