The Pakistan Army advertisement offering sanitisation jobs for Christians recently drew criticism on the micro-blogging site, Twitter, for being discriminatory towards the community.
Several Pakistani minorities right activists sprung to action fulminating against Pakistani Army’s accord and urging them to discard this discriminatory policy of recruiting only Christians for sanitisation work.
A member of National Lobbying Delegation for Minority Rights (NLDMR), Asif Aqeel took to Twitter to call out the Pakistani Army’s bias, but in doing so Aqeel invoked the Manusmriti. He claimed that the manuscripts of the Manusmriti have it that all Christians come from an ‘untouchable class’ and are expected to do such menial jobs. Shockingly, while expressing his disapproval for the Pakistani Army, Asif Aqeel spitefully divulges in insulting the ancient theology of Hindu religion.
I hope you already know this comes from Manusmriti. Most of the Christians come from an untouchable caste that is why they are forced into cleaning shit. Please reject this philosophy of hatred in clear terms.@Hareem7676 @LegalPolitical @OfficialDGISPR @maryjamesgill https://t.co/Usr0119Zoy
— Asif Aqeel (@asifaqeel) June 25, 2019
Asif Aqeel was, responding to another human right activist, Kapil Dev, who on Tuesday, expressed his acrimony against the alleged prejudice against the Christian community.
I fail to understand as to why sanitary workers jobs are allocated for #Christians only? Why not for all? What if such jobs are for only Muslims in UK, USA or elsewhere in the West?
You shit, and we clean.
This should stop now. #EqualityForAll pic.twitter.com/Wigfv1X34N
— Kapil Dev (@KDSindhi) June 25, 2019
Kapil Dev, another Pakistan based activist, questioned as to why such menial jobs are allocated to specifically Christians and not to members of other community. Irked by Pakistani advertisement the human right activist said, “I fail to understand as to why sanitary workers jobs are allocated for #Christians only? Why not for all? What if such jobs are for only Muslims in UK, USA or elsewhere in the West? You shit, and we clean. This should stop now. #EqualityForAll, Dev Tweeted along with pictures of the recent advertisement by the Pakistan Army.
A day prior, Asif Aqeel, too, appealed to the Pakistani Army Chief spokesperson, Major General Asif Ghafoor, to intervene and resolve the issue.
Honorable @OfficialDGISPR, Pak Christians have a great deal of love and respect for our armed forces. Even though a good number of Christians are working as janitors, tagging them with janitorial work badly reflects on us. We have high expectations from you. kindly intervene!!! pic.twitter.com/qkGKFptuQm
— Asif Aqeel (@asifaqeel) June 24, 2019
Run by several newspapers in Pakistan, the advertisement announced vacancies for the post of drivers, sepoys, tradesmen and sanitation workers in the Army’s Mujahid Force. However, the sanitisation work was specified for Christians only.