Bashing up minorities, abducting and raping minor girls from minority communities and descrating places of worship of minorities have become the new `normal` in Imran Khan’s `naya Pakistan`.

The latest case of a mob attacking a Hindu temple in Punjab proves how worse the situation has become under the leadership of Imran Khan who often boasts of protecting the interests of minorities.

The trigger was the bail given to a young Hindu boy who was charged with  blasphemy for allegedly urinating in a seminary. Although the local Hindu community was quick to apologise to the seminary administration, a mob armed with rods and crowbar attacked the local Hindu temple, smashing glass cases and the idols kept inside them.

The English daily, Dawn, called it a “shameful desecration” and pointed out that the “ orgy of violence, captured on video by several participants, will send a ripple of fear through the local Hindu community, as well as reinforce the sense of insecurity among Pakistan’s minorities as a whole”.

As the newspaper rightly pointed out, the case illustrated the dangerous levels to which the society had become radicalised and how vigilante violence had become a normal reaction to such incidents.

The News, another English daily, put the issue of suppression in perspective when it stated that “for years Pakistan has been plagued by hatred, based on ethnicity, religion and other factors which include gender and sexual orientation.” The newspaper pointed out that there had been a long history of crimes against minorities–from the attack on a temple in Karak to objections on the constructions of a temple in Islamabad to bomb attacks on churches and burning of a Christian couple a few years ago to forced conversions of Hindu girls in Sindh. There has been a consistent history of attacks on the places of worship belonging to non-Muslim communities in Pakistan. 

This, the newspaper said, was the result of a sustained policy of overlooking, and even encouraging, extremist tendencies in society. There is a systematic discrimination against minorities in all walks of life and on top of it there are alws that even more discriminatory against them, forcing them to live in the shadow of fear and hopelessness.

Under the premiership of Imran Khan, the attacks and humiliation of minority communities have seen a manifold rise. Except for false words of assurance, the Prime Minister had done nothing to help the minorities feel part of Pakistan. In fact, Khan had been openly supporting extremist groups which have been using blasphemy laws to humiliate and attack minorities without any fear.

Vanguard News Nigeria