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Business News/ Politics / News/  India asks Pakistan to protect minority rights
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India asks Pakistan to protect minority rights

India asks Pakistan to protect minority rights

Safety issues: S.M. Krishna.Premium

Safety issues: S.M. Krishna.

New Delhi: India has asked Pakistan to protect minority rights on back of reports of kidnapping, forced conversions and marriages of Hindu girls and killings of Hindu doctors in the neighbouring country.

Safety issues: S.M. Krishna.

“Recently, in separate incidents, three Hindu girls in Sindh province have reportedly been abducted and married against their will to Muslim men, after being forcefully converted to Islam," Krishna said. “This issue is a matter of concern to the government and is being taken up appropriately with the government of Pakistan."

“In the past, we have also seen reports of kidnapping and killing of members of the minority communities and desecration and encroachment of their places of religious worship in Pakistan," Krishna said, adding that it was the responsibility of the Pakistan government to discharge its constitutional obligations towards all its citizens.

Krishna acknowledged that the landmark 1972 Shimla agreement “specifically provides for non-interference in each other’s internal affairs". But “in view of the purely humanitarian nature of this issue, we appeal to the people and government of Pakistan to take all possible steps to protect the constitutional rights of their minorities by ensuring their safety, security and well being", Krishna said.

Reports of persecution of minorities have appeared in several Pakistani newspapers. In March, a report in the Express Tribune daily website said ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) National Assembly member Azra Fazl made startling revelations about how Hindu girls were being forcibly held in various madrasas (religious seminaries) in Sindh, only to be forced to marry into Islam upon their release.

Fazl, identified as a sister of Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, made the revelations in the National Assembly while discussing the case of Faryal Shah (Rinkle Kumari), who was allegedly abducted and later forced to marry and convert to Islam in Sindh, the report said. The PPP leader pleaded to fellow parliamentarians to enact legislation to protect minority rights and end forced conversions.

Security analyst C. Uday Bhaskar described India’s unusual remarks as “raising the ante in its diplomatic engagement" with Pakistan. “Most of the non-Sunni sects have been targeted in Pakistan," said Bhaskar, adviser to the South Asia Monitor, a New Delhi-based policy forum. As to how Krishna’s comment would impact the newly improved India-Pakistan ties, Bhaskar said: “Ideally, ties between the two countries should be impervious to this. It is a test to the relationship as to how both sides will take this."

India-Pakistan ties, ruptured by the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, have been on the mend since February last year. In recent months, both sides have been talking of improving business and investment links in a bid to boost ties.

elizabeth.r@livemint.com

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Published: 10 May 2012, 12:16 AM IST
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