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Keeping an eye on Saeed, JUD an eyewash?
Violence at Ghotki, Sindhi



By Manzoor Ahmed


Posturing to be fair and friendly in time for the visit of Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Pakistan had suddenly ordered a watch on the terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed and his Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). The Home Department of its Punjab province on July 28, 2016 directed the Punjab police to take “strict action” against activists of JuD.
The give-away of Islamabad’s real intention came in an announcement as reported by Dawn newspaper. It described JuD, an organisation which is on the UN watch list, as that “is accused by India of being involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.”
It is uncharacteristic for Pakistani media to acknowledge India’s allegations against Saeed, who is very powerful. Ministers have bent backwards to declare that Saeed or JuD have no connection with Lashkar-e-Toyaba (LeT), the parent organization of JuD that Saeed had infamously founded.
Indeed, the Pakistan Government’s Minister for States and Frontier Region retired Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch had in July last year ruled out the possibility of proscribing JuD “in the near future” insisting that there was no evidence of the charity organisation having been formed in place of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
The government move comes within a week of a highly trumpeted ‘rejection’ by India of a body close to JuD that sought to send doctors and medicines on a “medical mission” to Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s foreign office had formally criticised India for this ‘rejection’.
The Punjab Home Department has directed the additional inspector general of police (operations), Punjab and the divisional police chiefs across the province to gather and submit details of fundraising by JuD and other proscribed organisations “as the activity is against the law,” the report said.
JuD and its charity wing Falah-e-Insayat Foundation (FIF) are engaged in forcibly collecting charity from the public through religious means like through fitrana, zakat and sadkaats, charities conducted during Ramazan month, claiming that these funds were meant for using in relief work during natural calamity.
JuD members were “more active during Ramazan and distributed pamphlets, put up posters at various locations in Matiari Sindh, inviting people to give them their charity money.
“Activists of the organisation asked Matirai locals to make donations to FIF in order to avoid the government ban on proscribed organisations being involved in fundraising.
“The Madressah Umar Bin Khatab (RA) in new Saeedabad and Falah Markaz in New Hala, Matori have been designated as donation points for the fundraising.
A senior police official told Dawn that the action was based on reports from intelligence agencies who watched proscribed organisations. These step “should have been taken earlier and that the provincial government had been reluctant to take direct action against religious parties without concrete reason.”
The government had “realised that the charity organisation was not the real face of the outfit and had decided to look into how it spent the donations it collected from people in the name of charity.”
The US has placed a bounty on the head of Saeed and has demanded action. Officially, Pakistan has rejected charges against Saeed as “misinformation by India”, but has privately told the American lawmakers that Saeed was too powerful to be restrained.
Security experts have concluded that like many other militant outfits, Saeed and his organizations are part of Pakistan’s “strategic assets” to be used against India and Afghanistan.





Violence at Ghotki, Sindhi

By Manzoor Ahmed


A mentally unstable Hindu youth, said to be converted to Islam and living in a mosque has been accused of desecrating the Holy Quran, leading to shooting of two Hindus, and death of one in a town in Sindh, Pakistan, on Tuesday, July 26. In the communal passions generated by the so-called desecration, marauding rioters took to violence targeting the Hindus and their property. The victim is Dewan Sateesh Kumar, 17, who had nothing to do with the incident. Nor was his friend, Avinash, who is in a critical condition, according to the police at Mirpur Mathelo in Ghotki district.

The police took long to rush to the place, but local leaders of political parties, among them Jamiaut ul Ulema e Pakistan (Fazl) and Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ) have been quick in demanding stringent action against the Hindu-turned-Muslim boy and anybody else behind the alleged incident of sacrilege. These parties have ignored and the administration has sought to play down the fact that the alleged wrongdoer has converted to Islam and was being fed by people in the mosque.

There are no reports of any inquiry being held. Local leaders of the Hindu community while talking to journalists here demanded protection of their lives and properties in wake of the tensions. "A local trader Dewan Satesh Kumar has been killed," Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ghotki Masood Ahmed Bangash confirmed. He said police with the help of Rangers were trying to diffuse the tense situation, which emerged after villagers in Mehran Samejo near Daharki "caught" a Hindu man desecrating pages of the Quran.

Locals told Dawn newspaper that the Hindu suspect, Amar Lal, is a drug addict who had begun living in a mosque after converting to Islam a few month ago, adding that his mental condition is "unstable". According to the protesters, the accused entered a mosque and “set the holy scripture on fire”. There was no eye witness or anyone in authority, of the mosque or the government, to verify this.
All big and small towns of Ghotki district including Daharki, Mirpur Mathelo, Ubauro and Khan Pur Mehar remained closed due to communal tensions, with cities deserted.

In Daharki, where some burnt pages of the holy book were found outside an old mosque, “emotionally charged protesters on Tuesday assembled at a section of the National Highway and held a sit-in for five hours, demanding the arrest of the culprit, who was taken into custody by Daharki police. “Soon after the incident, protesters in most of the district’s towns took to the roads and staged demonstrations against the alleged sacrilege. They also burned tyres, tried to ransack shops owned by Hindus and clashed with police. “Sukkur SSP Amjad Shaikh went to the protest site in Daharki along with his team and tried to persuade people to end their sit-in but his vehicle came under attack and sustained damage. “The accused was booked and shifted to an undisclosed location by police. SSP Bangash told Dawn that police and law enforcement agencies personnel arrested over 150 people on rioting charges in overnight raids in the district. He said said heavy contingents of police had been posted at sensitive areas particularly outside the houses of Hindus living in the area,” Dawn News reported.
There have been several incidents of communal disharmony in the Ghotki district over the past few years, police said. The overwhelming majority of Hindus in Pakistan are concentrated in Sindh province. They form an estimated 1.6 percent of the total population. There has been no census in Pakistan since 1998. Hindus are concentrated in Sindh province where they constitute about 6.6% in province of Sindh. The Pakistan Census separates Schedule Castes from the main body of Hindus who make up a further 0.25% of national population.

The 1998 census of Pakistan recorded less than 2.5 million Hindus. The overwhelming majority of Hindus in Pakistan are concentrated in Sindh province. In 1951, Hindus constituted 22 percent of the Pakistani population (this includes East Pakistan, modern day Bangladesh). This made Dominion of Pakistan second biggest Hindu-population country after India. In the 1951 census, West Pakistan had 1.6% Hindu population, while East Pakistan (modern Bangladesh) had 22.05 percent. By 1997, however, the percentage of Hindus remained stable at 1.6 percent in Pakistan.

Dwindling of minorities is a continuing story of Pakistan that has created some more from among the Muslims by declaring the Ahmedis as non-Muslim and persecuting the Shias. At the time of partition in 1947, almost 23 percent of Pakistan’s population was comprised of non-Muslim citizens. Today, the proportion of non-Muslims has declined to approximately 3 percent. The distinctions among Muslim denominations have also become far more accentuated over the years. Muslim groups such as the Shias who account for approximately 20-25 percent of Pakistan’s Muslim population, Ahmadis who have been declared non-Muslim by the writ of the state, and non-Muslim minorities such as Christians, Hindus and Sikhs have been the targets of suicide bomb attacks on their neighborhoods, had community members converted to Islam against their will, and had their houses of worship attacked and bombed even while they were inhabited by worshipers.

Condemning the incident, Dawn newspaper (July 31, 2016) said this was a sign of the “pluralist Sufi ethos” of Sindh province coming under “threat from forces of bigotry.” The Ghotki incident was part of “this ugly trend.” “The Hindu community in Sindh has been targeted before, with temples and other buildings belonging to the faith group being desecrated and attacked. The forcible conversion of Hindu women is another issue that has fuelled communal divisions. “Amongst the factors that have led to this situation over the years is the fact that militant and sectarian groups have made inroads in many of Sindh’s districts. This, along with the growth of madressahs — with some seminaries affiliated with hard-line groups — has contributed to the changed social and religious ethos of Sindh.” It called for aprove into the killing of the Hindu youth, Sheetan Kumar, and punishment to those responsible.



(The writer is a Free lance journalist based in Kashmir)


(Disclaimer: The views, observations and opinions expressed in above write up of Scoop News are strictly author's own. Scoop News does not take any onus or liability for the veracity, accuracy, validity, completeness, suitability of any of information in the above given write up. The information, facts or figures appearing in the write up in no way manifest the position, standpoint or stance of Scoop News and the Scoop News does not assume any encumbrance or answerability of the same.)



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