NEW DELHI, Oct 17: As Hindus and non-Muslims minorities are being targeted in Pakistan, the world has come to realize that Hindus and other religious minorities are not safe in Pakistan.
A senior political analyst and researcher Munir Mengal said students in Pakistan are learning Hindus are kafirs and Jews are enemy of Islam. He exposed the reality of Pakistan in front of the world and said the gross human rights violations was being perpetrated by the Pakistani government and military in Balochistan.
Munir Mengal is president of the Paris-based NGO Baloch Voice Association and has been lobbying for the rights of Baloch people for several years now.
At United Nations Geneva-in the meeting of the 18th Session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action- on Friday, Munir told the Working Group about how schools in Pakistan are feeding anti-Hindu hatred and also hostility against the Jews.
In his speech Munir Mengal said, “I used to go to school in a very high-standard, state-run Army school called the Cadet College. The first lesson taught to us was that Hindus are kafirs and Jews are enemies of Islam, and both are liable to death for no other reason. Even today the same is the first, most important and basic message from uniformed Army teachers which is that we have to respect guns and bombs because we have to use these against Hindu mothers to kill them otherwise they will give birth to a Hindu child,”
“This sort of hatred is being taught in Pakistani schools, madrasas at every level even today. And all this is a basic part of the education syllabus. Religious fanatic groups and terrorist organisations have been declared and announced as state strategic assets,” he added.
A few months ago, the Punjab province of Pakistan had declared that no university will award a degree unless a student has attended the required ‘Quran with translation’ classes.
Nowadays, Students and teachers in Pakistan are not allowed to express their views over the on-going situation. If they pass any comment then they will be accused of committing Blasphemy.
Last year, a Pakistani court sentenced a 33-year-old university lecturer Junaid Hafeez to death for blasphemy. A Fulbright scholar, Hafeez was arrested in March 2013 and accused of posting liberal comments on social media. His lawyer was shot dead a year after his arrest. The Pakistani establishment is doing anything and everything to achieve its vicious objectives.
In a UN Working Group Mengal said, “Blasphemy law is being used systematically to punish the highly vulnerable sects of the societies, particularly religious minorities, and is being used as a high tool for discrimination. Labeling someone with blasphemy, punishing the whole community, and extra-judicially killing the alleged person, killing of any one who spoke out against the misuse of Blasphemy law, are considered as acts of heroism in Pakistan,”
He explained many things in detail about how Pakistan is ‘systematically’ eliminating the original identities of its minorities.
Mengal analyzed what tools the state is using, “books are barred in Balochistan. Reading and writing in mother tongue is barred. Anyone who practices his culture and belief is called a traitor. It means denying them humanity and suffocating the society. Right to education, right to health facilities, economic and job rights are far from thought. In such cases, judiciary becomes irrelevant and impunity prevails in every aspect of life,”
Munir Mengal expressed his views on the Chinese investments in Pakistan. He said, “In reality this (CPEC) is a high sign of neo-colonisation and expansionism. It is being done without the consent of local people. A large number has been displaced forcibly. There are no jobs for local Baloch people, even no drinking water. However, you can see unimaginable facilities for the Chinese people. Just imagine the current population of Gwadar is 80,000 and under CPEC there are plans to bring at least 500,000 Chinese people. This sort of altering demography means completely eliminating the Baloch race from that area.”
Mengal urged the United Nations to hold Pakistan accountable for the bloodbath of minorities in the mineral-rich area.
(Vinayak Barot)