KARACHI: A Hindu grave was dug up near Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi in a dispute over burial plots, police said Tuesday.

Local residents in Pangrio town, some 225 kilometres east of Karachi, protested that a man from the minority Hindu community had been buried in the main Muslim graveyard.

“The members of the Muslim community dug up the grave on Sunday, removed the body and handed it over to the town administration,” local police officer Aslam Khanzada told AFP.

The body of Bhoromal Bheel has now been reburied in another location, he said.

“The town was shut in protest by the Muslims,” Maulvi Mithan, the prayer leader in a local mosque said.

Relatives of the deceased, while talking to AFP, claimed that police had sided with the Muslims.

“My cousin’s body was removed and recklessly laid at the road all the day long in the scorching heat,” said cousin Nar Singh Bheel, adding that Hindus had buried bodies in that part of the graveyard for decades.

“We have over a hundred graves of our forefathers there,” he said.

Hindus account for two per cent of Pakistan’s 180 million population, mostly in Sindh province of which Karachi is the capital but tension between the two religious groups is relatively rare.

AFP

* http://dawn.com/news/1048494/hindu-grave-dug-up-near-karachi

“It is encouraging that political activists and civil society has reacted against the incident across the province”

The recent incident of unearthing the grave of a Dalit Hindu and throwing out his mortal remains by the extremists has jolted the people of Sindh with the shock. Those in this region who know that Sindhis are secular feel similarly.

By being in India and overseeing Sindhi newspapers online in free time, it is encouraging that political activists and civil society has reacted against the incident across the province. Sindhi nationalist party Jeay Sindh Qomi Mahaz (JSQM) has given the call for shutter-down strike in the province on October 10 against the religious extremism and victimizing Hindus. Qomi Awaz Tahreek, Kohli Alliance, and other political and social forums have held protest demonstrations and sittings in the various towns of Sindh. The nationalist political leaders have termed this act as conspiracy of Mullah-Military alliance to damage the secular outlook and fabric of Sindh.

No doubt, Sindhi people uphold and need to uphold the secular cultural ethos of Sindh.

Regards,

Zulfiqar Shah
India

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