 |
||
|
||
|
||
Hindu traders will suspend their businesses across Sindh and go on hunger strike if Santosh Kumar, a prominent Hindu who has been kidnapped, is not recovered immediately.
Speaking at a news conference here on Monday, Bhagwandas Chawla, president of the Karachi Hindu Panchayat and a former MNA, said the kidnapping of members of the Hindu community in Sindh had gone up over the last three months and the hostages had only been recovered after paying large ransoms.
Mr Chawla said Mr Kumar, who is president of the Hindu Panchayat in Larkana district, was kidnapped on his way to his lands in Pakha village, 15 kilometres from Larkana city, at about 10am on July 4.
“The repeated incidents of kidnapping have caused anguish, panic and unrest among the Hindu community in Sindh and many Hindu families have started migrating from interior Sindh to the big cities,” Mr Chawla wrote in a letter to President General Pervez Musharraf earlier.
He said the Hindus in Sindh were peace loving, law abiding and patriotic and most were engaged in business in rural areas and small towns. They were thus playing a vital role in the economic uplift of the province and deserved protection.
“The kidnappings are not only causing an enormous loss to the national exchequer, but also giving the country a bad name, thereby discouraging investors, particularly Hindus, and making them abandon plans for setting up industries and trading in the interior of Sindh,” he said.
Mr Chawla asked President Musharraf to intervene and direct the provincial administration to recover Mr Kumar safely and quickly and improve the security of the Hindu community in Sindh. Mr Chawla, flanked by Gianchand, Mr Kumar’s brother, told journalists that Hindu traders were generally involved in businesses related to rice mills, rice export, fertilisers and general stores.
He said there were 2 million Hindus in Pakistan but they lived in perpetual fear. He said on March 15 this year, “murtis” in one of the Hindu temples at Risala Road in Karachi were destroyed by a man who was later released though a case was registered against him.
Michael Javed, president of the
All Pakistan Minorities Alliance and a former member of the Sindh assembly,
announced that the Christian community would also join the Hindu community
in the hunger strike.
|
||
|
||
|
||