Taking into consideration the abduction of a Sikh girl, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned a senior official of the Pakistan High Commission

Pakistan has left none in the dark that it is a country which is heaven for terrorists and jihadis and hell for Sikh, Hindu and Christian minorities as they are not only treated as second class citizens, they are also forced to face a reality on the issue of their individual dignity and honour in the country. In fact, hardly a day passes when the international community members don’t encounter cases of heinous crimes against minorities in Pakistan.

A few days back, Manmeet Kaur Bulbul, a Sikh girl, resident of Attock District, in Pakistan’s Punjab was allegedly abducted from the vicinity of her home and forcefully converted to Islam and married off to a local Muslim boy. The girl has been identified as the daughter of Gurdwara Panja Sahib’s head granthi. The news spread like wildfire with many demanding justice for the minorities who meet the same fate in Pakistan.

Taking into consideration the recent case of the abduction of the Sikh girl, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned a senior official of the Pakistan High Commission following protests from the Sikh community in the national capital outside the High Commission on Monday.

Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee’s Chief Manjinder Singh Sirsa said, “This has been going on for years where the Sikh community has been subjected to violence in Pakistan. Girls have been abducted and are subjected to forcible conversions. The whole country must be involved in this fight.”

In order to unmask Pakistan and hold it accountable to the international community, the Indian World Forum (IWF) has sought intervention of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) highlighting the atrocities that minorities go through in Pakistan.

The IWF has written a letter to UNSC president Abdou Abarry, demanding intervention of the UN’s top body, stating, “Minorities living in Islamic Republic of Pakistan are victims of heinous crimes which are threatening International peace. Atrocities ranging from abduction to forceful conversion into Islam of young girls are a matter of great concern and decrease in demographics of minorities portrays lack of compliance of Islamic Republic of Pakistan to UN Charter.”

“Many young girls residing in Khyber Pakhtunwa, Punjab and Sindh province have been missing or abducted and are subjected to sexual exploitation and abuse. Irrespective of several appeals and complaints by their parents and guardians to local authorities, the state of Islamic Republic of Pakistan has failed to take any preventive measure,” IWF Secretary-General Puneet Singh Chandhok said in his letter to the UNSC president.

On the contrary, “the administration and state of Islamic Republic of Pakistan is alleged to be instrumental in protecting and shielding all those accused involved in heinous crimes against minorities living there,” Chandhok wrote.

Requesting the Council to launch a probe into the cases of abductions, genocides and forced conversions, he wrote, “I request your presidency to immediately investigate the ongoing atrocities on minorities living in Pakistan and also to direct the government to ensure safety and well-being of Hindus and Sikhs and other faiths living there, and ensure foolproof sanctity of historical shrines and estates located there. You may take any appropriate action as deemed fit including enforcing an international ban on Khalistan terrorists and their agents.”

IWF also pointed out the autocracy is so deep rooted in Pakistan’s DNA that it has used various agencies including its armed forces and other organisations at multiple occasions, supported and funded terror activities to sabotage peace and communal harmony in India.

It is not the first time that someone has called out Pakistan’s role in elevating Khalistan movement, but Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), a leading Canadian think tank released a report earlier this month suggesting that the ‘Khalistan Movement’ which aims to take away Punjab from India and make it into a separate country is being endorsed and nurtured by Pakistan at the time when it is ‘not going anywhere in the Sikh home state,’ Punjab.

The report, ‘Khalistan: A Project of Pakistan,’ written by veteran journalist Terry Milewski, focused on the evolution of the movement and how Pakistan played the nasty game of fostering terror in the 1980s to revive a dead movement.

According to several media reports, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and NGO, Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement in a press conference on March 29 last year demanded the government to pass a legislation to stop forced conversions but Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration did not pay any heed to it.

A month later, the commission released its annual report in which it cited year 2018’s data of around 1,000 cases of abduction and forced conversions in the Southern Sindh province alone. The commission raised serious concerns on such incidents but failed to attract any response from the government.

Ironically, Pakistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It includes the right to change religion as a part of freedom of religion, however, clearly maintains that no one shall be subject to coercion to change their religion. The country has, however, failed to abide by this international law.