A sensational media report in Pakistan claiming that some 60 persecuted Hindu families were intending to emigrate to India under the guise of a pilgrimage has set off a possible diplomatic standoff between the two countries – and left the pilgrims in the lurch.
The Express Tribune reported on Thursday that the 60 Hindu families from Balochistan and Sindh provinces had “decided to migrate to India” amid increasing cases of violence and lack of security for their community.
The report noted that some 200-250 members of the 60 families were intending to travel to India on a pilgrimage on a 30-day visa, issued by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, but that many of them were intending to seek asylum in India on grounds of religious persecution in Pakistan.
Quoting neighbours in the families’ hometowns, Tribune reported that the families had sold off all their land and other holdings with the intention of leaving Pakistan for good since they were unable to put up with instances of religious persecution, including the abduction of Hindu girls and their forced conversion to Islam.
The sensational report was denied by Hindu leaders, who claimed that the families were merely going on a piligrimage and would return to Pakistan. And Indian High Commission sources in Islamabad claimed they had no information on any such exodus. But by then, Pakistani officials had their antennae up for a “conspiracy” and have begun an investigation.
When some 100 of the pilgrims arrived at 7 am on Friday at the Wagah border between the two countries, they were stopped from crossing over by Pakistani immigration authorities on the ground that the piligrims’ progress had not been properly cleared.
The incident has the potential to snowball into a diplomatic standoff between the two countries. Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik had earlier suggested that reports of the pilgrims’ exodus to India were part of a “propaganda” effort to defame Pakistan. In any case, he said the Indian High Commission had been asked to explain it had issued visas to 250 Hindu citizens of Pakistan.
While the circumstances of this case await clarification, the incident has sharpened the focus on the continuing persecution – and forced coversion – of Hindus in Sindh and Balochistan.
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