In October, Ameer Jalaal reported in The Dawn that in the Sindh province of Pakistan,
“kidnapping for ransom is a common phenomenon in which unseen hands play a more
damaging role than the seen ones.”36
Of importance to Hindu human rights, Jalaal further reported:
In most of the stories the abducted person happens to be a Hindu. Not as a
rule, but generally the abducted Hindu belongs either to Kandhakot,
Kashmore, Jacobabad, Shikarpur, or to Sukkar and Ghotki. The reporters,
along with photographers, intrude into the house of the victim, and capture
appalling pictures of the wailing mother, wife, children, and sisters of the
victim. The photographs promptly appear on the front page of the
newspapers along with the file photo of the kidnapped person. The editors
provide all sorts of assistance to the reporters and the photographers in
following the story. Grisly reporting guarantees increase in the circulation
of the newspaper…. The police, as usual, refuse to register the case; thus
they provide ample opportunity to the kidnappers to get away as far as
possible. [Kidnapping] is a well-established multimillion industry in the
interior of Sindh. The industry efficiently operates unhindered through a
cleverly designed system of its own. The criminals are called Dharels.
They do not operate on their own. They are harboured and protected by
the influential and well-connected persons. They are called the
Patharedars. In most instances they rub shoulders with the people in the
corridors of power. People who really matter in Pakistan happen to be
their constant guests. They relish their luxurious hospitality and enjoy the
thrills of guided hunting expeditions in the interior of Sindh.
In November 2004, a report entitled “Pakistan’s Supreme Court has upheld a ban on
serving food at wedding receptions held in public places”37 manifested the state of
Hindu-Muslim relations in Pakistan. In the report, the Pakistan Supreme Court held that
serving food and extravagant displays of wealth was un-Islamic.
The Supreme Court averred that the most popular customs were all of Hindu origin and
had nothing to do with the Islamic concept of marriage (emphasis ours). This ruling
confirmed the “foreign” or “alien” status of Hindus in Pakistan and excludes their
heritage as an essential part of the societal mosaic.
Another report in November entitled “Another Hindu girl kidnapped in Pakistan”38 said
that a “Hindu teenaged girl was kidnapped in Pakistan in the second such incident in a
month.” Sapna Kumari, a Class X student, was kidnapped in October 2004 in
Balochistan and had not been traced. “A number of civil society groups and NGOs have
condemned the kidnapping of Sapna Kumari and demanded that the government find the
victim at the earliest,” the newspaper said. Pakistan’s parliament was informed in
October that a 14-year-old Hindu girl named Kaiko Mai was being held in illegal
detention and that her life could be in danger. Though not confirmed, these reports
implicate a pattern of kidnappings of Hindu young women in areas outside of urban
zones of Pakistan.
In a BBC report titled “Life as a modern slave in Pakistan,”39 it was said that nearly two
million people in the southern Pakistan province of Sindh are tied to their employers by
“bonded labor” — 12 years after Pakistan outlawed the practice. Under this practice,
landlords tie their employees to them by debt. The report stated that often the debt
amounts to thousands of rupees, much more than the workers actually borrowed, and that
the workers are held as slaves against their will. Many of these workers are Hindu, the
report noted.
“I was kidnapped with several others,” a woman named Shanti told BBC World Service’s
Slavery Today program. “I was confined alone in a small room. Then the landlord who
kidnapped us, raped me.” Shanti said that she was kidnapped by the same landlords for
whom her family had worked. She also said she was two months pregnant when
kidnapped. “The zamindar (landlord) said when he kidnapped me that if he kept me, then
my relatives and other people would come back to his land,” she said. “Then he raped
me, saying that because my family wasn’t working his land anymore, he had a right to
rape me.”
Another Hindu woman, Laxmi, described similar treatment by her landlord: “We were
severely beaten and worked very hard by our landlord,” she said. “He had no feeling for
human beings. He beat us when we wanted to go somewhere, or even when we asked
him for food.” She said the landlord had told her she and her husband owed 100,000
rupees (around $1,700) each. “Whenever we asked him for money, he used to beat us in
reply,” she said. “We used to think that the entire life of our children would pass, and
this debt would still not be paid,” she added.
Laxmi managed to escape her bondage and lives with a group of other former bonded
laborers. Although they live in poverty, Laxmi said that at least she is free. “We
definitely still feel hunger, but at least here we don’t have any torture,” she said.
“Previously we were beaten day and night.”
India’s State of Jammu and Kashmir
Kashmir was a Hindu country until 1339; the Muslim period stretched from about 1561
to 1819, when the Sikhs gained control over the region. Sikh rule spanned from 1819 to
1846. The Dogra (Hindu) kings ruled from 1846 to 1947. Modern Kashmir has been
claimed by both Pakistan and India, and after their partition in 1947, Kashmir, which was
then ruled by the Dogra king Hari Singh, joined the Indian Union as Pakistan’s regular
forces and militias crossed the border and sought to seize the kingdom.
According to the Kargil Review Committee Report, the former princely State of Jammu
& Kashmir has a total area of 85,807 sq. miles40. Of this, 30,160 sq. miles is under the
occupation of Pakistan, of which 2,000 sq. miles in the Shaksgam Valley was ceded by
Pakistan to China in 1963 as part of a boundary settlement (which India does not accept).
Approximately 14,500 sq. miles in Ladakh is presently under Chinese occupation. The
old princely state is now comprised of five regions: Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh, the
so-called Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), and the Northern Areas. Kashmir is
administratively divided into six districts with an area of 6,157 sq. miles and a population
of just over four million. The main language is Kashmiri with Gojari being spoken to a
lesser extent. Most Valley Muslims are Sunni with concentrations of Shias in certain
areas.
The Jammu region also consists of six districts with an area of 10,151 sq. miles and a
population of 3.6 million. Here, Hindus comprise 66.3% of the population but Doda,
Poonch and Rajouri districts have a Muslim majority, and Zanskar district has a Buddhist
majority. Ladakh, which includes the districts of Leh and Kargil, has an area of 37,337
sq. miles and a population of 171,000. Buddhists enjoy a small overall majority in the
region (51%) whereas in Kargil, Muslims, mostly Shias, constitute a majority of around
78%.
In Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), there are five districts (Muzzafarabad, Mirpur,
Kotli, Poonch and Bagh) with an area of 5,134 sq. miles and an estimated population of
3.5 million. The people of PoK are mostly Sunni Muslims speaking a mix of Punjabi,
Pahari and Pushto. There are virtually no Hindus left in PoK. The Northern Areas
have a Shia majority population with significant numbers of Ismailis and Nurbakshis (a
Sufi sect). Shia-Sunni tensions have frequently run high here and there have been
periodic riots.
The overall population on the Indian side of the Line of Control was estimated in 1981 at
7.7 million with Muslims (64.3%), Hindus (32.1%), Sikhs (2.16%), Buddhist (1.17%)
and others, including Christians (0.26%). The Indian Constitution, which came into
effect on January 26, 1950, incorporated Article 370 which conferred certain distinct
rights and privileges to the citizens of Kashmir.
More than 300,000 Hindus have been driven out of the Valley between 1989 and 1991,
and some say that the more realistic figure is nearly 400,000.41 Confirming the violent
dispensation in that region, two prominent Asian security experts have visualized the area
west of India comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia emerging as a
zone of chaos by 2030.42 The events of September 11, 2001 have made the problem of
Islamist fundamentalism inspired terrorism more urgent in the area. The
Pakistan-Afghanistan area continues to be the main center of Islamic fundamentalism,
drug trafficking, illicit trade in small arms and international terrorism.
As a follow-up to ethnic cleansing of Hindus from the Indian State of Jammu and
Kashmir, Islamist militants are forcing changes in the names of many places including
those of towns, villages and roads. These efforts are aimed at eliminating any remnants
of the enduring Hindu presence from the entire region. According to reliable reports, the
names of over 300 villages in the Valley have been changed. Official recognition has
followed in many cases to avoid militant attacks. The process of changing the names of
places and even those of the rivers started from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir where the
Kishan Ganga River was renamed as River Nilam and Krishna Ghati was given the name
of Vade-e-Nilam; Sharda Peeth has been renamed as Daras-Gah-e-Sharief.
Name changes include Anantnag, which has been renamed as Islamabad; Ranghat
Mohalla in Baramulla has been given the name of Sayeed Karim Sahib; Post Office Road
of Baramulla has been given the name of Shah Masal Market.
Even in Jammu city several such Muslim names have been given to various localities. In
Janipura, a locality has been renamed as Ramzanpura and another one has been renamed
as Hyderabad; in Bathandi area, a locality has been renamed as Firdousabad and a colony
in Narwal area has been renamed as Qasim Nagar.
Similarly, such names have been given to the newly established educational institutions.
It is understood that all this is being done to Islamize the whole region and to establish
what fundamentalist Muslims refer to as Nizam-e-Mustafa (“System of Mustafa,” which
some have broadly defined as, “A system of virtuous equality…. a political system of
security and justice…. an economic system of justice and provision…. a spiritual system
of meditation [sic] thinking, and remembering Allah…. and a social system of
brotherhood”.
Source : Hindu American Foundation 2005
