30,000 Pak Hindus, Sikhs can buy homes in India

[Buddhistforlife]

Why else do you think they would be over-represented?

Not at all, physical violence took place. My great grandfather got stabbed by some POS, I know exactly why the mass migrations occurred.

And I just told you, migrations clearly do occur from Hindustan into Pakistan.

Again, read my source properly.

LOL

Minorities dont have religious freedom in Pakistan. Hindus and Christians are forced to study Islam in schools and they cannot study their respective religions at school because the government do not offer hindu or christian text books at schools.

Why else do you think they would be over-represented?

Not at all, physical violence took place. My great grandfather got stabbed by some POS, I know exactly why the mass migrations occurred.

And I just told you, migrations clearly do occur from Hindustan into Pakistan.

Again, read my source properly.

LOL

Minorities dont have religious freedom in Pakistan. Hindus and Christians are forced to study Islam in schools and they cannot study their respective religions at school because the government do not offer hindu or christian text books at schools.

 

[Pan-Islamic-Pakistan]

Minorities dont have religious freedom in Pakistan. Hindus and Christians are forced to study Islam in schools and they cannot study their respective religions at school because the government do not offer hindu or christian text books at schools.




Minorities dont have religious freedom in Pakistan. Hindus and Christians are forced to study Islam in schools and they cannot study their respective religions at school because the government do not offer hindu or christian text books at schools.

Lol. I grew up with Christians in Pakistan. None of this is true.

Try again.

 

[timmy_area51]

that sounds like israel .

 

[Reichsmarschall]

Pakistani Hindus 'unwelcome' in India
Forced to flee alleged religious persecution, many complain of being treated with suspicion in Hindu-majority India.


by Shweta Desai
18 Feb 2014

Ramesh Pawar left his job in Pakistan and fled to India some three months ago [Shweta Desai/Al Jazeera]
Shaukimal Prajapati is a Pakistani Hindu who has found shelter in India, but never succeeded in finding a place that he could truly call his home.

"I am a Hindu in Pakistan, but a Pakistani in India," the MSc graduate from Pakistan’s Sindh Agricultural University, laments.

Prajapati's plight embodies the adversity that is commonly experienced by thousands of Pakistani Hindus like him, who have fled perceived persecution and harassment to take refuge in Hindu-majority India, only to be rebuffed and treated with suspicion.

Hindus form the single largest minority in Pakistan, accounting for 1.6 percent of its total population of about 180 million. About 95 percent of Pakistan's Hindu population is concentrated in its southern provinces of Punjab and Sindh.

However many have complained of being targeted and discriminated against. Hindus in Pakistan say they are subjected to abductions for ransom, rape, forced religious conversions and even forced marriages of young girls.

"I was a Hindu in a Muslim country and there was no space for my future there," explains Ramesh Pawar, 32, who some three months ago packed his suitcases and left his ancestral home in Pakistan's Karachi with his family to take the cross-country Thar Express train to India.

In recent years, the exodus of Hindus from Pakistan has reportedly accelerated and India's border state of Rajasthan is one of their favourite destinations. There are now about 400 refugee settlements in cities like Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner and Jaipur.

The four-hour journey to India by the Thar Express train is increasingly being viewed by many Pakistani Hindus as a passport to a secure career and a better future.

Ashok, a social worker, is a recent arrival from Pakistan. Unlike many others, he had a stable job back home. Yet, he felt insecure and left. "There was a huge risk of survival every night as a minority. didn't feel safe to leave [my] wife and kids at home, while working outside," he says.

Assad Iqbal Butt, a member of the Human Rights Commission Pakistan (HRCP), an independent body campaigning for human rights, says that Hindus face increasing hostility in Pakistan.

"The Hindus in Sindh are largely traders, businessmen and landlords. By targeting them for ransom with death threats and abductions, forceful conversions and marriages, the extremists are able to spread fear and drive them to migrate, thus taking over their houses and business."

Butt felt there was a "collective fear and collective silence". He said the situation of the Hindu community was so dire that people lived in perpetual threat.

"When the state itself has failed to protect the rights of its own people, who dare to stand for the minorities, what hope does the minorities themselves have? What will they do if not flee," he asks.

Emails to the Pakistani embassy in New Delhi for an official response received no response.

According to HRCP, religious intimidation against Hindus has caused both internal displacements from the Frontier Provinces and Balochistan to the cities around Karachi and Hyderabad, and external migration which saw around 600 to 1,000 families in 2012-2013 flee to India.

Birth of two nations

According to Seemant Lok Sanghatana, a Rajasthan-based organisation fighting for the rights of Pakistani Hindu immigrants, almost 120,000 Pakistani Hindus are now known to live in India, and approximately 1,000 migrate annually to Rajasthan alone in the hope of securing Indian citizenship.

Those fleeing mostly travel with valid documents and visas.

"Yes, they are coming with an intention to not go back, but they are returning to their land of forefathers," says Hindu Singh Sodha, who himself undertook a gruelling 50km horse ride in 1971, to cross over into India.



He was fleeing increased persecution at a time when the two countries fought a bitter war that led to the bifurcation of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.

But animosity towards religious minorities dates back even further. Since the British left India in 1947 - dividing the land into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India - minorities on either side have often felt unwanted and unwelcome in the land of their birth.

Hindus, for example, in the border regions of Punjab and Sindh woke up to find themselves as Pakistanis.

"They have become victims of the hostility of the India-Pakistan relations," said HRCP's Butt.

Sunita's academic records from Sindh Pakistan are not recognised in India [Shweta Desai/Al Jazeera]
But fleeing hatred and suspicion just by crossing international boundaries is easier said than done.

India refuses to recognise fleeing Pakistani Hindus as "refugees". According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality is taken into consideration to define a refugee.

India, however, is not a signatory to the convention.

And though India offers assistance to asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan, the same option is not extended to those from Pakistan.

Attempts to get a response from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs on the issue failed with emails being ignored.

"There is no intervention by the Indian government or international agencies for the plight of Pakistani Hindus," complains Sodha.

A refugee status would have helped Hindus from Pakistan to acquire residence permits and find employment.

In its absence, they are forced to wait for seven years before they can apply for citizenship under the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955.

They have become victims of the hostility of the India-Pakistan relations. In Pakistan, they are targeted because they are Hindus and in India they are vulnerable because they are Pakistanis

Assad Iqbal Butt, member of Human Rights Commission Pakistan (HRCP)

Until 2005-06, about 13,000 Pakistani Hindu migrants staying in Rajasthan had been granted Indian citizenship. The numbers have dwindled in the last three years though, with only 915 being granted citizenship.

So having crossed over into India and with no intention of returning home, the sole identity for many continues to be, ironically, their Pakistani passports. And on its expiry, they become stateless citizens.

"They have become victims of the hostility of the India-Pakistan relations. In Pakistan, they are targeted because they are Hindus and in India they are vulnerable because they are Pakistanis," says HRCP's Butt.

Prajapati, who fled Pakistan, experiences such vulnerabilities on a daily basis. "We somehow feel stranger here. When our nationality is revealed, there is a change in people’s attitude."

Sunita, his young niece, who migrated to India in 2012, had completed a year studying in the Maulana Azad Institute of Pharmacy in Jodhpur when her admission was cancelled a day before her examination.

"I was told that my secondary school certificate from Sindh Pakistan is not recognised in India, I won't find admissions for studies here."

Pawar, who came three months ago, is also finding the going tough in India.

"I am qualified enough to work on my merits in India, but no one is willing to hire me once they know I am from Pakistan," he says.

"My life was dark in Pakistan where I had to hide my identity as a Hindu. And now in India, my life continues to be in darkness as I have to hide I am Pakistani."

*Some names have been changed to protect the identity of interviewees.



It’s a sad ghar wapsi for Pakistani Hindus

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst



Betrayed by India: The tale of the Pakistani Hindu refugee

Betrayed by India: The tale of the Pakistani Hindu refugee
India FP Staff Apr 30, 2012 15:02:15 IST

Tweet


"Hindus are like a fish out of water in Pakistan. They all want to come to India, hoping to put an end to their misery – but it is a different story here altogether," says Krishan Lal, who is one of a group of 145 Hindus who fled Pakistan on a pilgrimage visa. He now lives in a refugee camp in North Delhi, praying that the Indian government will offer him permanent refuge.

Even as the persecution of Hindus in Pakistan makes headlines, India Today offers a timely and urgent reminder of that "different story" which unfolds on this side of the border – of the fate that awaits these Hindus when they land in India. [The story is unavailable online, but you can check out a brief excerpt here. But this 7 May issue is well worth a trip to the news-stand.]

The Hindu minority, under siege in Pakistan, especially from abductions, rapes, and forcible conversion of their women, is increasingly desperate to get out. The usual trickle of refugees has grow rapidly in the last year. Until mid-2011, 8-10 families crossed the border; that number has now increased to 400.

Even this number, however, is artificially low, kept down by stringent Indian visa regulations, especially after the 2009 Mumbai attack. Only one in five visa applications are approved.

Those lucky enough to cross the border are shoved into refugee camps, where they languish without rights or attention in a "no man's land." The Indian government treats them as an inconvenience that is best ignored. Take, for instance, Pujari Lal who fled in1999 after his teenage sister was kidnapped and raped. He now lives in Khanna, Punjab, in a settlement with 1,200 other Hindu and Sikh refugees.

"It has been 13 years but I still don't have Indian citizenship. My papers have come back a dozen times. They want proof of my father's date of birth and birthplace. My father is dead: my mother is with me but we do not have all the papers.," he says.


In a photo from 1971, a Hindu refugee from Pakistan stands outside her makeshift home in Calcutta. Getty Images

This is hardly unusual. As Rajya Sabha MP Avinash Rai Khanna points out in a sidebar, more than 3,500 families who emigrated to Jammu in 1947 have still not received citizenship.

Since they're not Indian citizens, refugees are still subject to the same restrictions as other Pakistanis: no ration card, driver's license, right to buy property, gas connection or travel within the country. "When our children fall ill, the government hospitals refuse to give us medicines, saying we are Pakistanis," says Jamuna Devi.


Most are forced to live a hand-to-mouth, uncertain existence reliant on the whims of the Indian and Pakistani authorities. To remain in the country, they must get their Indian visa extended over and again, and renew their passport – which now the Pakistani consulate insists they do on an annual basis.

And the hope for citizenship remains dim. Of the 148 applications received just from Punjab (in Pakistan) between 2009-2011, only 16 were accepted, 119 are stuck in limbo due to inadequate documents, and 13 have been rejected. Add to this an "active policy of discouragement" that makes it extremely difficult and expensive for Pakistani Hindus to secure a visa, and the message from the Indian state becomes crystal-clear: We don't want you.


Well, neither seemingly does Pakistan, where minorities have become an easy target in a climate of extremism. The India Today story is filled with heart-rending testimonies of refugees who have lost their wives, daughters and sisters to armed gangs and militias. But these tales are one part of a grim new reality not just for Hindus, but also Christians and minority Muslims such as Hazara and Ahmadi communities. Last September, 26 members of the Hazara community were forced to disembark from a bus by gunmen and shot dead.

A recent minority status report by The Jinnah Institute summed up the ground reality in these terms:

These most recent attacks on religious minorities and the state’s tolerance towards this persecution are part of a longer-term pattern of state complicity at all levels – judicial, executive and legislative – in the persecution of and discrimination against minorities. The findings of this report confirm that the legislature, executive and judiciary have historically played a foundational role in creating two-tiers of Pakistani citizenship, which are defined by whether a person is a Muslim or a non-Muslim.

Furthermore, both democratic processes and martial rule have been used to institute discriminatory laws and practices. It is also clear that the heightened threat of extremism and the ascendency of armed extremist militant groups confronting the Pakistani state have created a situation of “double jeopardy” for Pakistan’s religious minorities who now face the multiple assaults of vigilante attacks, increased physical threats and social persecution from extremist groups, as well as the discriminatory legal frameworks of the state and failure of the state to punish hate crimes. Indeed, the situation for Pakistani minorities has never been more dire than it is today.

The question for Indians is what role will we play in this unfolding tragedy. The answer is invariably muddled by the dynamics of our internal immigration politics. While the BJP has emerged as a champion of Pakistani Hindu refugees, it opposes, for example, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's position that all Bangladeshi migrants "who were compelled to leave their country because of some valid reasons, 'deserve' humanitarian consideration, irrespective of their religion." Muslim migrants are not welcome in Assam, according to the BJP litmus test, because they do not face religious persecution.

But can that kind of double-standard be extended to include visas? In the decision to grant citizenship? And how about fleeing members of minority Muslim sects whose situation is no less dire? Can we be advocates not just for Hindus but also other suffering minorities in our neighbourhood? Offer a safe haven for all those fleeing in desperation?

There are no easy solutions, but what the India Today story makes clear is that the status quo is untenable. We can no longer content ourselves with pro forma expressions of concern even as we reject those who seek our protection

 

[Areesh]

Pakistani Hindus should not pay tax to the Pakistani government.

They would pay tax. One way or the other.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Take back your people . We don't have space.

Read below. You want gain 10 for every one?

For every person who left the Indus I think there is 10 who came here from India.

 

[Kuru]

Um. Partition? Genocide of Jammu? Genocide of Ferozepur, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar? Genocide in Dilli, Bombay, Calcutta, other large cities? The invasion of Hyderabad and massacre of the Nizam’s people? Genocide in Bihar and Assam?

All of these horrible events sent refugees to Pakistan. 14 million refugee, 1 million dead Muslim East Punjabis atleast. Migration of millions of Muhajirs who number almost 20 million in Pakistan today. Biharis and Assamese Muslims fleeing to now Bangladesh.

Wow you listed out so many things. But couldn't find one single link which shows Indian Muslims go to Pakistan as refugees due to persecution, and ask for Pakistan's citizenship.

Seems Google isn't helping.

Indian Muslims leaving India due to persecution would have been biggest news of the century for our media. Why is it so hard to find such a news - considering that we "Lynch kill rape and persecute" Muslims all the time ?

 

[illusion8]

Pakistani Hindus 'unwelcome' in India
Forced to flee alleged religious persecution, many complain of being treated with suspicion in Hindu-majority India.


by Shweta Desai
18 Feb 2014

Ramesh Pawar left his job in Pakistan and fled to India some three months ago [Shweta Desai/Al Jazeera]
Shaukimal Prajapati is a Pakistani Hindu who has found shelter in India, but never succeeded in finding a place that he could truly call his home.

"I am a Hindu in Pakistan, but a Pakistani in India," the MSc graduate from Pakistan’s Sindh Agricultural University, laments.

Prajapati's plight embodies the adversity that is commonly experienced by thousands of Pakistani Hindus like him, who have fled perceived persecution and harassment to take refuge in Hindu-majority India, only to be rebuffed and treated with suspicion.

Hindus form the single largest minority in Pakistan, accounting for 1.6 percent of its total population of about 180 million. About 95 percent of Pakistan's Hindu population is concentrated in its southern provinces of Punjab and Sindh.

However many have complained of being targeted and discriminated against. Hindus in Pakistan say they are subjected to abductions for ransom, rape, forced religious conversions and even forced marriages of young girls.

"I was a Hindu in a Muslim country and there was no space for my future there," explains Ramesh Pawar, 32, who some three months ago packed his suitcases and left his ancestral home in Pakistan's Karachi with his family to take the cross-country Thar Express train to India.

In recent years, the exodus of Hindus from Pakistan has reportedly accelerated and India's border state of Rajasthan is one of their favourite destinations. There are now about 400 refugee settlements in cities like Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner and Jaipur.

The four-hour journey to India by the Thar Express train is increasingly being viewed by many Pakistani Hindus as a passport to a secure career and a better future.

Ashok, a social worker, is a recent arrival from Pakistan. Unlike many others, he had a stable job back home. Yet, he felt insecure and left. "There was a huge risk of survival every night as a minority. didn't feel safe to leave [my] wife and kids at home, while working outside," he says.

Assad Iqbal Butt, a member of the Human Rights Commission Pakistan (HRCP), an independent body campaigning for human rights, says that Hindus face increasing hostility in Pakistan.

"The Hindus in Sindh are largely traders, businessmen and landlords. By targeting them for ransom with death threats and abductions, forceful conversions and marriages, the extremists are able to spread fear and drive them to migrate, thus taking over their houses and business."

Butt felt there was a "collective fear and collective silence". He said the situation of the Hindu community was so dire that people lived in perpetual threat.

"When the state itself has failed to protect the rights of its own people, who dare to stand for the minorities, what hope does the minorities themselves have? What will they do if not flee," he asks.

Emails to the Pakistani embassy in New Delhi for an official response received no response.

According to HRCP, religious intimidation against Hindus has caused both internal displacements from the Frontier Provinces and Balochistan to the cities around Karachi and Hyderabad, and external migration which saw around 600 to 1,000 families in 2012-2013 flee to India.

Birth of two nations

According to Seemant Lok Sanghatana, a Rajasthan-based organisation fighting for the rights of Pakistani Hindu immigrants, almost 120,000 Pakistani Hindus are now known to live in India, and approximately 1,000 migrate annually to Rajasthan alone in the hope of securing Indian citizenship.

Those fleeing mostly travel with valid documents and visas.

"Yes, they are coming with an intention to not go back, but they are returning to their land of forefathers," says Hindu Singh Sodha, who himself undertook a gruelling 50km horse ride in 1971, to cross over into India.



He was fleeing increased persecution at a time when the two countries fought a bitter war that led to the bifurcation of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.

But animosity towards religious minorities dates back even further. Since the British left India in 1947 - dividing the land into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India - minorities on either side have often felt unwanted and unwelcome in the land of their birth.

Hindus, for example, in the border regions of Punjab and Sindh woke up to find themselves as Pakistanis.

"They have become victims of the hostility of the India-Pakistan relations," said HRCP's Butt.

Sunita's academic records from Sindh Pakistan are not recognised in India [Shweta Desai/Al Jazeera]
But fleeing hatred and suspicion just by crossing international boundaries is easier said than done.

India refuses to recognise fleeing Pakistani Hindus as "refugees". According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality is taken into consideration to define a refugee.

India, however, is not a signatory to the convention.

And though India offers assistance to asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan, the same option is not extended to those from Pakistan.

Attempts to get a response from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs on the issue failed with emails being ignored.

"There is no intervention by the Indian government or international agencies for the plight of Pakistani Hindus," complains Sodha.

A refugee status would have helped Hindus from Pakistan to acquire residence permits and find employment.

In its absence, they are forced to wait for seven years before they can apply for citizenship under the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955.

They have become victims of the hostility of the India-Pakistan relations. In Pakistan, they are targeted because they are Hindus and in India they are vulnerable because they are Pakistanis

Assad Iqbal Butt, member of Human Rights Commission Pakistan (HRCP)

Until 2005-06, about 13,000 Pakistani Hindu migrants staying in Rajasthan had been granted Indian citizenship. The numbers have dwindled in the last three years though, with only 915 being granted citizenship.

So having crossed over into India and with no intention of returning home, the sole identity for many continues to be, ironically, their Pakistani passports. And on its expiry, they become stateless citizens.

"They have become victims of the hostility of the India-Pakistan relations. In Pakistan, they are targeted because they are Hindus and in India they are vulnerable because they are Pakistanis," says HRCP's Butt.

Prajapati, who fled Pakistan, experiences such vulnerabilities on a daily basis. "We somehow feel stranger here. When our nationality is revealed, there is a change in people’s attitude."

Sunita, his young niece, who migrated to India in 2012, had completed a year studying in the Maulana Azad Institute of Pharmacy in Jodhpur when her admission was cancelled a day before her examination.

"I was told that my secondary school certificate from Sindh Pakistan is not recognised in India, I won't find admissions for studies here."

Pawar, who came three months ago, is also finding the going tough in India.

"I am qualified enough to work on my merits in India, but no one is willing to hire me once they know I am from Pakistan," he says.

"My life was dark in Pakistan where I had to hide my identity as a Hindu. And now in India, my life continues to be in darkness as I have to hide I am Pakistani."

*Some names have been changed to protect the identity of interviewees.



It’s a sad ghar wapsi for Pakistani Hindus

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst



Betrayed by India: The tale of the Pakistani Hindu refugee

Betrayed by India: The tale of the Pakistani Hindu refugee
India FP Staff Apr 30, 2012 15:02:15 IST

Tweet View attachment 486817


"Hindus are like a fish out of water in Pakistan. They all want to come to India, hoping to put an end to their misery – but it is a different story here altogether," says Krishan Lal, who is one of a group of 145 Hindus who fled Pakistan on a pilgrimage visa. He now lives in a refugee camp in North Delhi, praying that the Indian government will offer him permanent refuge.

Even as the persecution of Hindus in Pakistan makes headlines, India Today offers a timely and urgent reminder of that "different story" which unfolds on this side of the border – of the fate that awaits these Hindus when they land in India. [The story is unavailable online, but you can check out a brief excerpt here. But this 7 May issue is well worth a trip to the news-stand.]

The Hindu minority, under siege in Pakistan, especially from abductions, rapes, and forcible conversion of their women, is increasingly desperate to get out. The usual trickle of refugees has grow rapidly in the last year. Until mid-2011, 8-10 families crossed the border; that number has now increased to 400.

Even this number, however, is artificially low, kept down by stringent Indian visa regulations, especially after the 2009 Mumbai attack. Only one in five visa applications are approved.

Those lucky enough to cross the border are shoved into refugee camps, where they languish without rights or attention in a "no man's land." The Indian government treats them as an inconvenience that is best ignored. Take, for instance, Pujari Lal who fled in1999 after his teenage sister was kidnapped and raped. He now lives in Khanna, Punjab, in a settlement with 1,200 other Hindu and Sikh refugees.

"It has been 13 years but I still don't have Indian citizenship. My papers have come back a dozen times. They want proof of my father's date of birth and birthplace. My father is dead: my mother is with me but we do not have all the papers.," he says.


In a photo from 1971, a Hindu refugee from Pakistan stands outside her makeshift home in Calcutta. Getty Images

This is hardly unusual. As Rajya Sabha MP Avinash Rai Khanna points out in a sidebar, more than 3,500 families who emigrated to Jammu in 1947 have still not received citizenship.

Since they're not Indian citizens, refugees are still subject to the same restrictions as other Pakistanis: no ration card, driver's license, right to buy property, gas connection or travel within the country. "When our children fall ill, the government hospitals refuse to give us medicines, saying we are Pakistanis," says Jamuna Devi.


Most are forced to live a hand-to-mouth, uncertain existence reliant on the whims of the Indian and Pakistani authorities. To remain in the country, they must get their Indian visa extended over and again, and renew their passport – which now the Pakistani consulate insists they do on an annual basis.

And the hope for citizenship remains dim. Of the 148 applications received just from Punjab (in Pakistan) between 2009-2011, only 16 were accepted, 119 are stuck in limbo due to inadequate documents, and 13 have been rejected. Add to this an "active policy of discouragement" that makes it extremely difficult and expensive for Pakistani Hindus to secure a visa, and the message from the Indian state becomes crystal-clear: We don't want you.


Well, neither seemingly does Pakistan, where minorities have become an easy target in a climate of extremism. The India Today story is filled with heart-rending testimonies of refugees who have lost their wives, daughters and sisters to armed gangs and militias. But these tales are one part of a grim new reality not just for Hindus, but also Christians and minority Muslims such as Hazara and Ahmadi communities. Last September, 26 members of the Hazara community were forced to disembark from a bus by gunmen and shot dead.

A recent minority status report by The Jinnah Institute summed up the ground reality in these terms:

These most recent attacks on religious minorities and the state’s tolerance towards this persecution are part of a longer-term pattern of state complicity at all levels – judicial, executive and legislative – in the persecution of and discrimination against minorities. The findings of this report confirm that the legislature, executive and judiciary have historically played a foundational role in creating two-tiers of Pakistani citizenship, which are defined by whether a person is a Muslim or a non-Muslim.

Furthermore, both democratic processes and martial rule have been used to institute discriminatory laws and practices. It is also clear that the heightened threat of extremism and the ascendency of armed extremist militant groups confronting the Pakistani state have created a situation of “double jeopardy” for Pakistan’s religious minorities who now face the multiple assaults of vigilante attacks, increased physical threats and social persecution from extremist groups, as well as the discriminatory legal frameworks of the state and failure of the state to punish hate crimes. Indeed, the situation for Pakistani minorities has never been more dire than it is today.

The question for Indians is what role will we play in this unfolding tragedy. The answer is invariably muddled by the dynamics of our internal immigration politics. While the BJP has emerged as a champion of Pakistani Hindu refugees, it opposes, for example, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's position that all Bangladeshi migrants "who were compelled to leave their country because of some valid reasons, 'deserve' humanitarian consideration, irrespective of their religion." Muslim migrants are not welcome in Assam, according to the BJP litmus test, because they do not face religious persecution.

But can that kind of double-standard be extended to include visas? In the decision to grant citizenship? And how about fleeing members of minority Muslim sects whose situation is no less dire? Can we be advocates not just for Hindus but also other suffering minorities in our neighbourhood? Offer a safe haven for all those fleeing in desperation?

There are no easy solutions, but what the India Today story makes clear is that the status quo is untenable. We can no longer content ourselves with pro forma expressions of concern even as we reject those who seek our protection

All that hardship but they are still leaving Pakistan for India in their thousands every year? hmm..

 

[GHALIB]

Wow you listed out so many things. But couldn't find one single link which shows Indian Muslims go to Pakistan as refugees due to persecution, and ask for Pakistan's citizenship.

Seems Google isn't helping.

Indian Muslims leaving India due to persecution would have been biggest news of the century for our media. Why is it so hard to find such a news - considering that we "Lynch kill rape and persecute" Muslims all the time ?

here is one clue "mafia don "

All that hardship but they are still leaving Pakistan for India in their thousands every year? hmm..

we should give them permanent citizenship.

 

[Kuru]

All that hardship but they are still leaving Pakistan for India in their thousands every year? hmm..

I think the problem lies in Pakistan school text books where Hindus are demonised and called "thugs" and "enemies". So even after facing all these hardship of living like a refugee in India , they will still leave Pakistan.

Unless Pakistan changes such curriculum, more Hindus will leave Pakistan , soon there would be no Hindu left there.

here is one clue "mafia don "

But they can't accept that the Don has been living there, ha !

Btw, I hear the Don is desparate to come back to serve his sentence ?

 

[GHALIB]

I think the problem lies in Pakistan school text books where Hindus are demonised and called "thugs" and "enemies". So even after facing all these hardship of living like a refugee in India , they will still leave Pakistan.

Unless Pakistan changes such curriculum, more Hindus will leave Pakistan , soon there would be no Hindu left there.


But they can't accept that the Don has been living there, ha !

Btw, I hear the Don is desparate to come back to serve his sentence ?

many are interested .

 

[Buddhistforlife]

They would pay tax. One way or the other.

Pakistani minorities are weaker and they cant fight against the majority muslims directly instead Pakistani Christians and Hindus can rebel by not paying tax..

 

[Areesh]

Pakistani minorities are weaker and they cant fight against the majority muslims directly instead Pakistani Christians and Hindus can rebel by not paying tax..

They would pay tax. We know how to get it.

 

[Nilu Pule]

Filthy refugee scum should not be allowed to stay in India. If North India loves them they should keep them in their states.

My state Maharashtra had to accommodate these Sindhi refugees. Even though we had no connection with Sindhis. These scumbags have captured Ulhasnagar and nearby areas.

 

[Hamza913]

Minorities dont have religious freedom in Pakistan. Hindus and Christians are forced to study Islam in schools and they cannot study their respective religions at school because the government do not offer hindu or christian text books at schools.

And how is that against religious freedom?