Pakistan’s minority population shrinks from 40 to 4 per cent
June 26, 2012: Religious minorities have all but evacuated Pakistan amid increasing
extremism and restrictions on religious freedom. Non-Muslims now make up less than
four percent of the country’s 170 million residents, a drastic decline from the 40
percent when modern Pakistan was formed in 1947. “Attitudes towards non-Muslims became
more aggressive under the prolonged military regimes, while the democratic governments
failed to address the situation,” said Nasira Iqbal, a retired judge of Lahore High
Court. The introduction of blasphemy laws has made non-Muslims more vulnerable to
persecution, she added. “At present, there is not a single Jew in the country,”
Iqbal said. “In Lahore, there are fewer than 20 Parsi [Zorastrian] families. The number
has almost halved in only three years.” Iqbal spoke Friday at the People’s Convention
on Ending Religious Discrimination and Violence: Stake-holders Responsibilities, organized
by the Peace and Tolerance Alliance (PTA). The PTA urged the government to put checks
on discrimination, end forced conversion and excise religion from the legal system. Amar
Nath Randhawa, president of the Hindu Sudhar Sabha (Hindu Welfare Society), said more
than 400 Hindu families have left Pakistan in the past year. “There are about half
a million Hindus in Punjab, but we have no representation in the provincial assembly,”
he said. “We have to observe our religious rituals at home since temples and cremation
grounds are being forcefully occupied. Educated girls have to stay at home for fear
of abductions and forced conversions.” Kanwal Feroz, editor of a Christian monthly,
said the emigration trend has increased among Christian families as well, especially
among the young generation. “There is a wave of disappointment every time culprits
of anti-Christian violence go unpunished,” Feroz said. He also pointed out that gaining
asylum can be more difficult for Christians than Hindus, who are more easily accepted
in India. “Many Christians lose huge amounts of money seeking asylum abroad,” he
said. Religious violence in the country is not limited to non-Muslims. The Sunni majority
also targets Shi’ites, such as the Hazara sect in Balochistan province, where five
Shi’ite students were killed on June 18 by a remote-controlled bomb planted in a university
bus. Local police claimed terrorists targeted the bus because it carried mostly
Shi’ite students. Over the last decade, more than 700 Shi’ites have been killed in
the province, gripped by separatist insurgency, sectarian violence and Taliban suicide
attacks.