Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: Hindustan Times
Date: May 1, 2009
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=RSSFeed-Chunk-HT-UI-HomePage-TopStories&
Targeted by the Taliban, 35 Sikh families
that have been living for decades in Pakistan's Orakzai Agency have begun
migrating from the area after being levied a jaziya or protection tax, an
issue New Delhi has now taken up with Islamabad.
India said it had taken up with Pakistan the
treatment of minorities in the country.
"The Government of India has taken up
the question of treatment of minorities in Pakistan with the government of
Pakistan," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said
in New Delhi.
Quoting sources, Pakistani channel Geo TV
said Taliban militants had taken over the shops and homes of the 35 Sikh families
and arrested community leaders Klank Singh and Sewa Singh in the Ferozkhel
area of Lower Orakzai Agency.
Following this, a local jirga ruled that the
Sikh community should annually pay Rs.15 million ($187,000) as protection
money. Earlier reports had said the Taliban had demanded Rs.50 million but
that this had been reduced.
When the Sikh community expressed their inability
to pay, the Taliban then auctioned their houses and other belongings, forcing
them to migrate from the area.
There are reports the militants had demolished
the houses 11 houses of the Sikh community after they failed to pay the jaziya
tax.
The Orakzai Agency is situated in the virtually
ungovernable Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border where the writ of the Taliban and Al Qaeda largely runs.
The militants in the area are led by Hakeemullah
Mehsud, the deputy of Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, one of the
principal suspects in the Dec 27, 2007 assassination of former Pakistani prime
minister Benazir Bhutto in a gun and bomb attack in the garrison town of Rawalpindi.
