At least fifteen students from Pakistan’s minority Hindu community were injured when they were attacked by members of a radical Islamic student organisation Islami Jamiat Tulba (IJT). The said incident occurred when the Hindu students were celebrating Holi at the University of Karachi. It is being alleged that this was the second such incident in two days. A number of videos have surfaced on the social networking platform showing the IJT attacking Hindu communities even after the students obtained permission from the administration to celebrate Holi.

The police had received an application to open a case against the attacker. According to Siasat, other videos show security guards wielding batons and beating students as they flee the scene.

Following the incident, a University of Karachi official confirmed that there was a mishap in the Sindhi department where Hindus and other students were celebrating Holi and throwing colored powder at each other, when some students attacked and injured them. The official went on to say that they are investigating the incident because it is completely against their policies.

An unnamed Hindu girl student, dressed in a mask with other students, later posted a video on Twitter detailing the entire incident. As per Siasat, she stated that IJT activists attacked students celebrating Holi in the hall and beat some of them.  She further provided that the attackers also harassed female students, forcing them to leave the place. She said that the Hindu students had assembled to celebrate the Holi festival, and she wants the government and varsity to take action against those responsible.

According to Telangana Today, the Sindh Council General Secretary Kashif Brohi stated in response to the incident that members of the Hindu community and the council had organised a Holi celebration after obtaining permission from the university administration. He claimed that IJT activists began hurling threats after students posted Holi invitations on their Facebook page. He claimed that on Monday morning, members of the Sindh Council and the Hindu community were celebrating Holi outside PU Law College when IJT activists wielding guns and batons attacked them.

Brohi went on to say that the students later gathered outside the vice chancellor’s office to protest when security guards arrived with batons and began beating them. According to Telangana Today, he also claimed that security guards bundled four to five students into their vans, preventing them from recording their peaceful protest.

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In a shocking incident reported from Pakistan, a 40-year-old Hindu woman, Diya Bheel, has been brutally killed in Sinjhoro town in Sanghar District, Pakistan. She was reportedly beheaded with her breast chopped off and the scalp peeled. Reports also suggested that the woman was allegedly raped 3 days ago and then murdered

The details of the incident were posted on Twitter by Pakistan member of Senate, Krishna Kumari Kohli, who said she visited the village.

Daya Bhel 40 years widow brutally murdered and body was found in very bad condition. Her head was separated from the body and the savages had removed flesh of the whole head. Visited her village Police teams from Sinjhoro and Shahpurchakar also reached. pic.twitter.com/15bIb1NXhl

— Krishna Kumari (@KeshooBai) December 29, 2022

A Pakistan Journalist also posted about the incident stating that no FIR was filed in the case

I am devastated by getting details on the case. Three days ago, in Sanghar Diya, Bheel was decapitated; brutal murder after being raped.

The police have not filed FIR, and no person in the Sindh govt or Human Rights orgs bother to speak about it.

Hindus never matter to state.

— Veengas (@VeengasJ) December 29, 2022

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The post Hindu woman found decapitated, maimed in Pakistan appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A hoard of Indian television news channels have been making blatant attempts to communalise a Pakistani Hindu family’s tragic end. According to fact checker Alt News, a Hindu man had allegedly murdered his family members and killed himself in Pakistan, reportedly due to personal issues, and possibly also due to poverty and unemployment. However, many Indian television news channels were quick to cannibalise this tragedy, and give it a communal spin. According to these TV news channels, the killings were symbolic of alleged atrocities against Hindus in Pakistan.

Leading the pack was Times Now, that claimed, “Atrocities against Hindus continue in Pakistan…This is a story of five members of a Hindu family brutally murdered in Pakistani Punjab…What is unfortunate is that no one has investigated in this regard…One thing we keep on seeing is Imran Khan giving lessons and sermons on the human rights violation in India but what exactly is happening in his backyard, he tries to hardly do anything.”

After Times Now reporter Pradeep Dutta aired this “news”, the channel reported that the Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded that the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) takes cognisance of “crimes against Hindus in Pakistan.”

#Breaking | BJP demands UNHRC must take note of crimes against Hindus in Pakistan.

Listen in. pic.twitter.com/SuJo11n09d

— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) March 8, 2021

Meanwhile, the Dawn news paper had reported that the man “killed his wife and three minor children before committing suicide over unemployment at Chak 135-P of Pattan Minara ancient archaeological site, some 11km from here, on Friday. It added that “according to district police spokesperson Ahmed Nawaz Cheema, the bodies of Lachmi Ram (30), Prem Kumar (13), Anjali (10) and Anika (4) were found at their home while Ram Chand (35), Lachmi’s husband, was found critically injured when neighbours broke the door of their house early in the morning. 

According to Alt News, news agency ANI also “credited Pakistan-based The News International in its report” while reporting the incident. The agency reported: “Social activist Birbal Das in Rahim Yar Khan told The News International that Ram Chand was a Meghwal Hindu and he was 35-36 years old. He was running a tailoring shop for a long time. He was a peaceful man and living a happy life, and the incident was quite shocking for everyone.” The story was carried by a leading news portal of India, stated  Alt News. Meanwhile BJP members amplified the report linking it to the “need” for CAA, in India.

Pakistan is curse for minorities !

5 members of a Hindu family murdered by Jihadis (slitting throat ) in Multan of Pakistan.

Dear Indian Sickulars & Librandus,
That’s why CAA was needed !https://t.co/EDMjGiOrEQ

— Major Surendra Poonia (@MajorPoonia) March 7, 2021

According to many Indian news outlets who carried the report of the tragedy, the killing of these five Pakistani Hindus had allegedly “sparked fear among the Hindu community in Pakistan.” Many went into the details of the crime and quoted “Pakistani newspaper The News International” in their reports detailing the gory murders. The Hindu man was identified as Ram Chand Meghwal who was 36 years old. According to the news reports, the man was “living peacefully with his family but this was intolerable for the attackers”. 

However, according to Alt News, Pakistan-based The News International, had been selectively quoted. It had in its own report stated that, while Ram Chand Meghwal and his family were found dead in their house, “the police claimed the killer was the family head, Ram Chand, who slit throats of his wife (Lakshmi Mai), three children over suspicion that his wife had illicit relations”. The report added, “The complainant, Terath Ram, a brother of Lakshmi Mai, lodged his complaint stating that his brother-in-law, Ram Chand, slit throats of his family members over suspicions.” This is the Image shared by Alt News

The fact checking outlet stated that Rohi, a regional news channel from Pakistan’s South Punjab area spoke to Ram Chand’s sister who said that he hadn’t been working for the past two years and his wife repeatedly asked him to get a job. It also accessed the FIR reportedly filed by Ram Chand’s brother-in-law Tirath Ram. The FIR is in Urdu and stated, “My brother-in-law Ram Chand murdered his wife Lakshmi Mai and kids Prem Kumar, Anjali Mai and Aniqa Mai with an axe and dagger on 5-3-2021 because they used to complain…He has injured himself too. Upon receiving this information I went on the spot with Jeena Ram, Barad Ram and Chitra Ram and saw that my sister Lakshmi Mai, his son Prem Kumar and her daughters Anjali Mai and Aneeqa Mai were dead. There were knife marks on their necks. Ram Chand was shifted to the hospital by his brother. Ram Chand used to suspect my sister. He murdered his wife and kids with an axe and knife at night and later tried to commit suicide as well with the knife. I was later informed that Ram Chand also passed away in the hospital.”

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The post Indian TV news communalises familicide by Pakistani Hindu man appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A few of us had met for drinks at a friend’s farmhouse on the outskirts of the city of Kasur, which borders Lahore. We knew we just had to visit the shrine of Baba Bulleh Shah before heading back to Lahore, for a visit to Kasur is incomplete without seeing this Sufi shrine in the heart of the city.

The verses of this 17th century Sufi poet are still sung all over Punjab, in Pakistan as well as India. His pointed criticism of institutionalised religion and the hypocrisy of religious leaders has captured the heartbeat of several generations of Punjabis who have seen religious persecution at several points in history. For agnostics like my friends and I, Bulleh Shah is like a beacon of hope, his criticism of religious oppression in many ways more terse and relevant than that of several Leftist intellectuals.

It is ironic, then that Bulleh Shah’s shrine has, over the past few years, become one of the most dominant religious symbols of Kasur. He says in one of his poems:

“Partisans live in Dharamsalas, cheats in temples,
butchers reside in mosques;
while lovers live apart from them all.”

A mosque has been constructed next to his shrine whose minaret vies to be one of the tallest structures in the city. We visited the shrine a couple of years before Sufi shrines across the country started coming under attack, so there was minimum security.
As has been the tradition for centuries, the shrine remains open all night, giving refuge to anyone in need of it. At the courtyard, facing the room housing the grave of Bulleh Shah, devotees sang Bulleh Shah’s poetry:

“With whom should I share the secrets of my heart”

We sat facing the qawwal, listening to their chorus over and over again. It took over us like a spell. It became an expression of what was in our hearts. This line captured the reality of our existence – our struggles, our pains.
I noticed one of my friends, who at the time was particularly stressed by familial and financial concerns, drown into the depths of this line. First his head and then his body started moving with the beat. Without a warning he got up and started whirling. He was in a state of trance. He was performing the dhamaal. He banged his feet vehemently on the floor with the beat of the dhol, scattering at the shrine of Bulleh Shah all the secrets of his heart that he could not share with anyone else.
 

Rules of religion

Religious puritans often resent such an expression of religiosity. It is one of the several reasons that Islamic militant organisations, who see themselves as guardians of a pure Islamic culture uncorrupted by other cultural influences, have a disdain for Sufi shrines where such “un-Islamic” practices thrive. Qawwali, dhamaal, and intermingling of sexes at the courtyards of Sufi shrines are seen as unlawful extensions of Islamic religion and thus need to be stopped.

This is also why Sufi shrines have frequently come under attack by militants over the last decade.

The most recent such incident was on November 12, when a suicide bomber, said to be affiliated with the Islamic State, blew himself up at the Shah Noorani shrine in Baluchistan’s Khuzdar district, killing at least 52 people.

In March 2009, the 17th-century shrine of Rahman Baba in Peshawar was attacked, killing over a hundred. On April 3, 2011, a bomb blast at the shrine of a 12th-century Sufi saint Sakhi Sarwar in Dera Ghazi Khan killed around 50. On July 1, 2010, bomb blasts rocked the Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore, killing at least 37. And in October that year, the shrine of the 8th-century Sufi saint Abdullah Shah Ghazi was attacked in Karachi, killing eight.

According to reports on the November 12 attack, the suicide bomber blew himself up when devotees were performing the dhamaal at the courtyard of the shrine, a religious practice that he deemed un-Islamic.
 

Trance dance

The dhamaal has a long history with Sufi Islam in this part of the world. Every year, on the occasion of the annual urs (death anniversary of the patron saint) celebrations at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sewhan Sharif, Sindh, hundreds of thousands devotees converge and perform the dhamaal, an expression of their religious devotion. In Lahore, every Thursday, devotees gather at the courtyard of the shrine of Baba Shahjamal, and, after consuming hashish and bhang, perform dhamaal to the wild beats of the dhol.

The dance, which involves whirling rapidly, almost uncontrollably in one spot, uncontrollably, has a magnetic-like field around it that draws the everyone in. In traditional Sufi literature, the dhamaal is depicted as having destructive powers. For example, in a folk story about 17th-century Sufi saint Shahjamal says that the the saint destroyed a seven-storey building through his dhamaal. It is perhaps due to this destructive nature of the dhamaal that many anthropologists and historians have made a connection between Sufi dhamaal and the tandava, a passionate dance performed by Shiva, a Hindu God, which has the power to destroy the world.

This is one of the many ways in which Shaivism inspired indigenous Sufi traditions. For instance, like Shiva ascetics, many dervish of the Sufi tradition let their hair grow believing its contains magical power. They also believe that the ash of the fire contains healing properties. Consumption of hashish is also seen as a spiritual rite in both of these traditions. Undoubtedly, as Sufi Islam spread through this region, it adopted and re-appropriated various traditions from the ascetics of Shiva. Dhamaal is one of those traditions.

In a sense, the criticism of Islamic puritanical groups is that Sufism adopts practices that were not part of the “original” religion that emerged from Arabia. However, what this criticism does not take into account is that Islam, like all other religions, also borrowed and incorporated various traditions from the lands that it spread out into. So what constitutes the original religion is hard to trace.
 

Question of identity

In the context of Pakistan this becomes a graver problem. Pakistan sees itself in opposition to India, which has a Hindu majority. Therefore, it becomes even harder to accept and justify that several religious traditions of this land are inspired by pre-Islamic traditions. It is this ideology that Islamic militants tap into, inspiring young mind. The recent attack at the shrine of Shah Noorani is not an anomaly. Rather it is an expression of a philosophy and ideology that has been promoted ever since the creation of the country, an obsession almost to identify as a pure culture vis-a-vis India. It has been part of the State discourse, expressed through media, education, and even religion for decades. It is these distinct cultures that are used to explain the current India-Pakistan conflict.

How then is one to understand the recent attack at the shrine of Shah Noorani? Aren’t the militant groups attacking Pakistan an extension of the philosophy of the State? How will a State that for years has been obsessed with purifying Pakistani culture from its Hindu past interpret and take action against militants who are doing what it has preached? This battle can never be won as long as Pakistan upholds its obsession of wiping clean its Hindu past. This is an ideological battle in which, unfortunately, the State and the militants find themselves on the same side.

Haroon Khalid is author of the books Walking with Nanak, In Search of Shiva and A White Trail

This article was first published on Scroll.in

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He was a addressing a gathering in New Delhi at a seminar on — Role of Muslim Youth in Strengthening Democracy — organised by National Tricolour Association of India, a non-profit organisation.

“There have been cases of violence against Muslims, from (Mohammad) Akhlaq’s lynching in Dadri to two boys in Jharkhand who were hung from a tree.”

“And, there has never been a lack of expression of secularism from Hindus in our country. You see on television, how they (Hindus) strip RSS and BJP bare, whenever such incidents happen. But, why we (Muslims) don’t raise issues when there are violations against Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh,” he asked.

In his address, Azad also hit out at the Centre saying, “democracy has ceased to exist” in the country ever since the NDA government came to power.

He added that if the Muslims in India start speaking out against acts of such violence in the neighbouring countries then, “BJP’s anti-Muslim edge will be blunted.”

Two other scholars, who also spoke at the seminar held at the India Islamic Centre, underlined the “silence” of the country’s Muslim community in hours of violence in “India’s neighbourhood”.

“We hear cases of violence meted out to our Hindu brothers in Bangladesh, or of Hindu temples being razed or desecrated. But, do we (Muslims) speak out on such brazen acts of violations? We must speak out against injustice, just as we expect our majority Hindu brothers to stand by us in India,” they said.

Azad also hit out at the government over the demonetisation issue saying, “the move has driven Indians crazy in the name of black money.”

He also took a dig at the media and Prime Minister Modi, saying, “now it’s all Modi in newspapers and on TV channels, the Opposition cannot be seen.”

“The time of free and impartial media is no more. Now, you open, newspapers, and you see 10-20 pictures of Modi,” he alleged.

Source: PTI

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter
 

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