A group of miscreants vandalised a temporary Hindu temple built to celebrate the festival of Janmashtami, the birthday of Krishna, a Hindu deity, in Khipro in the Sanghar district of Sindh province on Monday. The idol of Krishna was also broken.
A Hindu temple is vandalized in Khipro,Sanghar,Sindh, to insult Hindu God as they were celebrating the birthday of Lord Krishna.
In Pakistan even false allegation of blasphemy against Islam leads to mob lynching or death sentence but crimes against Non-Muslim Gods goes unpunished pic.twitter.com/I8UlMU5HnL— Rahat Austin (@johnaustin47) August 30, 2021
MANY TEMPLES DESTROYED, LITTLE TO NO JUSTICE BEGOTTEN
A mob of around 150 people had attacked the Hindu temple at Bhong city of Rahim Yar Khan district on August 4 after a nine-year-old Hindu boy, said to be mentally challenged, had relieved himself inside a seminary.
In October 2020, an idol of Durga Mata, a Hindu deity, was vandalized in Nagarparkar, Tharparker while September 2020 saw another similar incident in Badin, Sindh.
The construction of the first Hindu temple in Islamabad in July 2020 was also met with protests by the religious right, leading to the government back-tracking on this initiative.
The vandalisation of Bhong Temple is one of the few incidents leading to arrests and renovation of the temple. A suo moto hearing of the case took place on August 13, which declared that the criminals should be made to pay for the damage. The Punjab Inspector General (IG) reported having arrested over 95 men. The temple has also been restored, and handed back to the Hindu community.
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THE 2014 JILANI JUDGEMENT
The 2014 Jilani judgement, a landmark Supreme Court order issued by Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani on June 19 was partially a response to the desecration of Hindu temples in Larkana, a city otherwise known for its precedent of religious harmony. Its expansion of the constitutional right to freedom of religion has been compared to Brown v. Board of Education outlawing segregation in the United States.
The judgement issued guidelines on and demanded subsequent reports on the follow-up of protection of religious minorities. Activists and civil society organisations lament its implementation, pointing towards the political influence of majoritarian religious groups. They point towards the rejection of the Human Rights Ministry’s proposed draft of the anti-forced conversion bill earlier this month as evidence of the religious right’s influence on government capacities.
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