Hindu trader shot dead, son kidnapped in Quetta of Balochistan, Pakistan

By Gopinath Kumar (PHP from USA)
Wednesday, June 09,2010

 (Members of the Hindu community blocking a road during a demonstration against the killing of a famous Hindu trader and the kidnapping of his son, June 8, 2010. – Online Photo)

QUETTA - A prominent trader, belonging to the Hindu community, was shot dead and his son was kidnapped by armed men in provincial capital within the jurisdiction of Satellite Town Police Station here on Tuesday night, police said.

According to police, Rajesh Kumar, a rice dealer and his son Hamesh Kumar were near their shop located on Maddrasa Road of Satellite Town and intended to go home when unidentified armed men tried to kidnap his son.

Rajesh offered resistance to the kidnappers in order to rescue his son when kidnappers opened fire and injured him critically.

The kidnappers forcibly took away Hamesh Kumar.

Local people took the injured to a private hospital where he succumbed to his injuries and doctor declared him dead. Later the police took the body to government Sandman Hospital Quetta for autopsy.

‘Four kidnappers who were in Levies Force uniform tried to kidnap the son of Hindu trader when he resisted as a result kidnappers opened fire on him’, a senior police officer told The Nation and ,added, that investigation was underway to ascertain the real motive behind the incident and police was making all efforts for safe recovery of the kidnapped person.

A large number of traders and members of Hindu Community reached the hospital as news spread about the killing of the trader.

The traders staged a protest demonstration and burnt tyres on Jinnah Road where hospital is situated and blocked the road for traffic.

They chanted slogans against the government for its failure to maintain peace in the provincial capital.

‘The incident of kidnapping for ransom is increasing with every passing day and people are being killed but government is reluctant to take action against the involved culprits’, Rahim Kakar, President of Anjuman-i-Tajran Balochistan said while talking to media at hospital.

He said traders will stage a demonstration in front of the Quetta Press Club in protest against the incident and would announce the strategy to force the government to maintain peace in the City.

The police personnel reached the spot and managed to disperse the enraged protesters peacefully by providing the assurances about their safety and security

Terror-Stricken Minority Sikh community and The Noble ‘Servant’ Of Peshawar in Pakistan

By Mohammad S.Solanki (PHP Managing Editor)
Wednesday, June 09,2010

 (PHOTO : Sikh community in Peshawar City , Pakistan)

Peshawar : Khurshid Khan, an eminent 60-year-old lawyer and deputy attorney general of Pakistan, wants to “heal the wounds” of the terror-stricken minority Sikh community in that country. So he does an extraordinary thing at a temple in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Every day when he handles his work as a legal expert, Khan visits a Sikh temple in center of the city, wraps a piece of cloth around his head to show his respect, and sits in the doorway to shine the shoes of Sikhs, whose community has come under frequent attack by Taliban militants over the last few years.

Two months back, militants in Khyber Agency abducted three Sikhs and demanded for a huge ransom for their release. Two were eventually freed, but one, Jispal Singh, was killed in brutal fashion and his corpse left on the roadside in the tribal area.

“I went to offer my condolences to the family of Jispal Singh and that was a turning point in my life,” Khan tells RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal. “I realized that as a Pashtun I should work to ‘heal their wounds’ by becoming their sewadar (servant). I want to give them a message of love and brotherhood, and that’s why every day I am here to shine their shoes.”

Khan says he is himself a landlord and doesn’t even shine his own shoes at his home. But his cause inspires him to sit on the ground on a daily basis and shine 70-80 pairs of shoes.

“I can see the light of love in their eyes for me and my people,” he maintains.

He adds that Sikhs have lived in the area with the dominant Pashtun communities for centuries, pay taxes, and play an important role in the economic progress of the region. But still, he laments, we fail to protect their lives and properties.

They are being killed and kidnapped by the Taliban in Orakzai, Kurrum, and Khyber tribal regions, Khan says, adding that other Pakistanis must stand by them in these critical hours and give them a sense of oneness and brotherhood.

An estimated 28,000 Sikhs live in Pakistan, including about 10,000 who live in the tribal region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of the conflict-ridden country. In May 2009, Taliban militants destroyed 11 Sikh homes in the Orakzai tribal district after accusing them of failing to pay “taxes.” The ongoing conflict in the Buner and Swat districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has displaced more than 200 families.

Please Sign Petition : Help Ensure Justice for (Ms. Kasthuri Khali) Hindu rape victim in Pakistan

Tuesday,June 01,2010

Namaste

Sign Petition : Ensure human rights protection of a minority rape victim in Pakistan

Targeting: Ambassador Hussain Haqqani (Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S)

Started by: Pakistan Hindu Post

               Approximately 25-30 minority women are kidnapped, raped, and forcibly converted in Pakistan every month. You have the power to change that. With your signature, we can change conditions for the poor, the disenfranchised, the minorities, and indentured laborers in Pakistan. Without basic human rights, without legal protection, and an invisible entity to the government of Pakistan, these minority women suffer inhuman abuses including rape, abduction, conversion, and intimidation. Your signature shows that we will take notice and we can change that. Help us get 1000 signatures for Ms. Kasthuri Khali, and for all the other nameless women in Pakistan so we can ensure a better tomorrow.

HUMAN RIGHTS ALERT: PAKISTAN : A 17 year old Hindu teenager is told to marry her alleged rapist,police and courts fail to act

Issues : Hindu child is raped by local politician and his companions, girl is being pressured to marry her rapist and convert to Islam

Click here and sign the petition letter!

Thanks,

The PHP Team

P.S.  Help spread the word.  Forward this email to your friends, family and community members.

Daily Inspiration from Pakistan Hindu Post (PHP)

By Gopinath Kumar (PHP USA)
Monday,May 31,2010

Our civilization has come under a new assault with the entire globalization of a rotten food culture. The McDonald's experience is really the experience of eating junk whilst thinking you are in heaven.

 Environmentalist Vandana Shiva criticizing fast food chains.

Muslims regularly abduct, marry, convert young women of minority faiths, then sell them as slaves in Pakistan

By Dr.Radhe Shyam Kumar
Thusday,May 20,2010

(Pakistani Hindus celebrate Holi, the 'festival of Spring' in Peshawar on March. The Holi festival is celebrated by Hindus to mark the onset of spring)

Islamabad : According to Reliefweb - Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Shiite (a Muslim minority) women in Pakistan are regular victims of such kidnappings, “weddings” and “conversions” in this Sunni Muslim dominated country.

A Muslim family kidnapped and forcibly converted an 18-year-old Christian woman, then beat her mother twice for trying to get her daughter back in Lahore, Pakistan recently, according to Compass Direct News (CDN).

On April 25 Muhammad Akhter and Muhammad Munir broke into the home of 50-year-old Fazeelat Bibi, the victim’s mother.  They beat her for seeking legal help for her daughter Saira, whom the two Muhammads had kidnapped, the CDN said.

Neighbors’ calls to the police were unheeded during the beating in Bibi’s Lahore home, situated in the predominantly Muslim Bostaan Colony.  One week before, Bibi went to the kidnapper’s house to see her daughter.  The kidnapper’s family beat her with clubs and ripped off her clothes.

The two Mohammeds, Akhter and Munir, claimed the victim had eloped with the latter.  But Saira said she was kidnapped from her home and her jewelry and dowry were stolen.  Then they forced her to convert to Islam.  Saira was engaged to a Christian man, CDN said.

Quoting a report from the Asian Human Rights Commission, Reliefweb cited this pattern where the women usually range in age from 15 to 18.  Reliefweb reported strong suspicions that once “converted,” the girls are trafficked and sold.  This may explain why the families may no longer see their daughters, although the “husbands” return to the village and resume their normal lives.

Other recent stories of abduction of Pakistani women of minority faith who were  kidnapped, “converted” and “married” are:

   * Gajri Ram, 15, a Pakistani Hindu who was abducted from her home by a Muslim neighbor.  Her parents later learned she was held captive in a madrassa, had married and converted to Islam.  The madrassa will not allow the parents to see her.  Local government authorities are not helping the family of the victim.  They claimed to receive a letter from the madrassa with an affidavit that Gajri had married and converted.  The letter showed no marriage certificate, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

   * Daya Meghwar, 15, was forcibly married to an influential Muslim man and converted to Islam.  The abductors threatened the entire 71 Dalit Meghwar family against alerting authorities lest more women are kidnapped.  The 71 families left the village and settled in a nearby town.  They are deprived of their source of income, food and access to drinkable water.  Government indifference remains, according to Reliefweb.

   * Kastoori, 17, a Hindu girl was kidnapped on March 2010 by three influential Muslim brothers and raped by one of them.  She was forced to wed her rapist and convert to Islam.  The court and police, when called for assistance, instead arrested the victim’s father under a fake case, Reliefweb said.

   * Miss Gomti, 15, a Hindu, was abducted by her parents’ landlord and was married to one of the landlord’s peasants after converting to Islam.  The parents only knew of her whereabouts six weeks after, could only see the young girl in the presence of the landlord’s employees, and were shown a wedding certificate that falsely registered her as 19 years old, Reliefweb said.

According to Reliefweb, women of minority faiths and dominations are vulnerable targets in Muslim dominated Pakistan.  They estimate 20-25 Hindu girls are abducted monthly and forcibly converted.  The head of the Madrassa (school) where Daya was converted said they had 40,000 conversions in their school.

The same report bewailed the lack of sufficient mechanisms in their defense.  Such crimes are rarely reported and when they are, they are rarely addressed by law enforcement authorities.

Reliefweb said that even at the highest levels, government response is marginal at most.  In 2009 two laws were set in motion penalizing harassment of women in any public and private workplace; and criminalizing domestic violence.  However, there is little likeliness it will impact on the lives of women of religious minorities.

63 die, dozens injured in Hindu temple stampede , India

Source http://www.geo.tv
Thursday, March 04, 2010, Rabi ul Awwal 17, 1431 A.H

Most of those gathered at the ceremony were from nearby villages

LUCKNOW: A stampede broke out at a Hindu temple in northern India Thursday as thousands of people jostled with each other to get free clothes and utensils, leaving at least 63 people dead and dozens more injured, officials said.

The force of the stampede was so great, it knocked down a gate at the temple compound in Kunda, a small town 110 miles (180kilometers) southeast of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.

About 44 worshippers were injured in the crush of people at a Hindu temple belonging to a popular local religious leader, said Ashok Kumar, a senior government official.

Thousands of farmers and villagers had gathered at the temple around noon to receive free goods to mark the anniversary of the death of the wife of the religious leader, Kripalu Maharaj, said Brij Lal, a local police official.

By late afternoon police had cleared the compound and started the process of identifying the bodies, Kumar said.

Hundreds of people gathered at a nearby hospital for news of their family members.

``She had just wandered in to see what was happening,'' said Gudal, a 38-year-old farmer whose 7-year-old daughter, Ranjana, was killed. Gudal, who uses only one name, wept as she spoke.

Deadly stampedes are a relatively common occurrence at temples in India, where large crowds _ sometimes hundreds of thousands of people _ congregate in small areas lacking facilities to control big gatherings.

In 2008, more than 145 people died in a stampede at a remote Hindu temple at the foothill of the Himalayas.