A middle-class Hindu family in Karachi city of Pakistan was attacked by Maulvis or Muslim clerics who threatened them to convert to Islam. Basant Kudar, a Hindu and his mother were also threatened to be killed if they disobeyed the order. Basant’s brother narrated the whole incident in a video. A FIR has been registered against the culprits.
HinduPost spoke to a Hindu human rights activist who informed us that the incident took place in the middle-class PIA township area of Karachi, the cosmopolitan capital of Sindh province which is considered ‘progressive’ by Pakistani standards.
We learnt that the accused maulvi Usman who attacked the Hindu family and threatened to kill them if they did not convert to Islam was living in the same neighbourhood as the Hindu family. As the local mosque was closed due to Covid-19 lockdown, for the past few days another maulvi named Shahid was forcefully coming into the victim’s house and conducting namaz on their roof. He had also argued with Basant and threatened him. However, the family kept quiet out of fear as they are ‘living in a Muslim country’.
But after they were attacked inside their house, the family decided to file an FIR.
Such persecution & discrimination against minorities, and open calls to convert are par for the course in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Anti-Hindu sentiment is so rife in the country that celebrities like cricketer Shahid Afridi and others openly make Hinduphobic remarks without any condemnation. When minor Hindu girls are abducted, raped, converted & married to Muslim men, Pakistani society remains quiet as bringing a non-believer into the Muslim fold is considered a pious deed.
Islamic apologists quote the The Qur’anic verse “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) to counter the argument that forced conversions are happening in Pakistan and even in countries like Bharat. However, what constitutes “compulsion” is in the eye of the beholder. The institutionalized subjugation of the dhimmi (second-class non-Muslim citizens), with its regular humiliation and harassment, from which one can be freed for the simple price of converting to Islam, is not considered compulsion in Pakistan.
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