Unidentified assailants have shot dead a 44-year-old Hindu businessman identified as Sunil Kumar in Anaj Mandi, Sindh Province in Pakistan, reports news agency ANI.
According to Pakistan’s local media reports, on January 2, soon after the brutal murder, Hindus gathered outside a local police station to stage a dharna. The demand for the immediate arrest of the assassins of the Hindu trader was raised during the protest. The incident led to the shutdown of the city.
In Pakistan, violence against minorities and their places of worship have increased in recent years. Various incidents pertaining to vandalism of the homes of Hindus to rape and abduction of women, especially those belonging to minority Hindu, Christian and Sikh communities to temple desecration have been regularly reported from the Islamic country of Pakistan. The international community has condemned the country for failing to protect minorities’ rights, yet the Imran-Khan government has done little to safeguard the minorities in the country.
In fact, last month, a Pakistani journalist had revealed how hatred against Hindus is indoctrinated in educational institutes in the country. He made the remarks in the aftermath of the brutal lynching of a Sri Lankan factory manager on charges of blasphemy in Sialkot, a city in the Punjab province in Pakistan.
During a programme held on ‘Tellings with Imran Shafqat’, one of the panellists lamented about the intolerance and bigotry taught at both governmental and non-governmental schools in Pakistan. “What are our children being taught in schools? When my children return from school, they ask me bizarre questions. One day, my son asked whether we have Hindus in Pakistan. I told him about my Hindu friend. He then told me how his teacher encouraged him to kill Hindus in Sindh.”
“If you have Hindus in Sindh, then, why don’t you guys kill them,” the son of the Pakistani journalist was taught at school.