Pakistan's Sikhs face systematic persecution, targetted abductions: Report

Islamabad, Jan 31 (IANS) While Pakistan's constitution guarantees equality and protection for religious minorities, the reality reflects "repeated betrayal". For Pakistani minorities, true reform goes beyond rhetoric, requiring independent investigations, prompt enforcement of court orders, accountability for biased officials, and protection against exploitation of blasphemy laws or mob violence, a report said on Saturday.

“Gurvinder Singh, a Sikh businessman from Peshawar, highlights a troubling pattern of systemic neglect and bias against religious minorities in Pakistan. Singh says he was defrauded of PKR 75 million (approximately USD 270,000) between 2022 and 2023 by three local Muslim associates, Bilal Iqbal, Zulfiqar, and Raj Wali, with whom he co-managed a mobile phone showroom. After discovering the embezzlement, he filed an FIR with Peshawar police. The accused issued bounced cheques and written undertakings on stamp paper promising repayment, yet they have faced no meaningful consequences,” a report in Khalsa Vox detailed

“Courts at multiple levels, including the trial court, sessions court, and Peshawar High Court, have ruled in Singh’s favour, yet the perpetrators remain free, and his funds unrecovered. Despite appeals to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, the provincial and federal governments, and even Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir, no intervention has materialised,” it added.

Singh linked the lack of action directly to his minority status as a Sikh, accusing Pakistani authorities of systemic bias that overlooks justice for non-Muslims.

According to the report, this issue is not an isolated incident but part of a long-standing pattern of failing to protect Pakistan’s Sikh community and minority groups.

Recent accounts, it said, show that Sikh women have been subjected to targeted abductions, forced conversions to Islam, and coerced marriages, as seen in the 2019 case of Jagjit Kaur in Nankana Sahib, who was kidnapped at gunpoint, converted, and married to a Muslim man, with the judiciary ultimately siding with her abductor.

“Sikh men, identifiable by their turbans and beards, endure verbal and physical abuse, targetted killings (such as the 2023 shootings of shopkeepers Dayal Singh and Manmohan Singh in Peshawar and nearby areas), and land grabs or property disputes often masked under blasphemy allegations or mob violence. Gurdwaras and other minority sites suffer neglect, vandalism, or attacks, as seen in the 2020 mob assault on Gurdwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib amid tensions over a conversion case,” the Khalsa Vox report stated.

Highlighting the atrocities on minorities in Pakistan, the report further said, “Gurvinder Singh’s ordeal exemplifies how economic predation intersects with religious marginalisation in Pakistan. When minorities succeed in business or hold assets, they become targets for fraud or seizure, with the state machinery, police, courts, and officials failing to enforce remedies due to ingrained prejudice.”

--IANS

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