Around 200 Pakistani Hindus Cross Attari-Wagah Border, Say Want To Settle In India As They Felt Unsafe In Pakistan
On Monday (3 February), around 200 Pakistani Hindus crossed over to India through the Attari-Wagah border, reports Pune Mirror.
According to the report, officials at the border said there are strong indications that several travellers did not wish to go back.
According to the report, the Hindus from Pakistan have entered India on visitor visa. However, some of them reportedly claimed that they felt unsafe in Pakistan due to religious persecution and are hoping to get Indian citizenship after enactment of the CAA.
Meanwhile, Akali leader and Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjinder Singh Sirsa was at the border where he received four families, who he claimed had "fled" Pakistan due to religious persecution.
He said he would meet Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday (04 February) and request him to grant them Indian citizenship.
In a tweet on Monday (3 February), Sirsa said "4 Hindu-Sikh families have fled Pakistan to save their life and religious faith.”
After the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed by the Parliament, the number of Hindu travellers from Pakistan has increased significantly, said a border official.
Most of the Hindus who managed to cross over to India belonged to the Sindh and Karachi province where kidnapping and forceful conversion of Hindu and Sikh girls to Islam are on the rise.
"We are not feeling safe in Pakistan. Our girls feel insecure as they fear that they could be kidnapped any time by hardliners while police watch as spectators. Our girls cannot walk freely in the north-west area of Pakistan," said a woman.
Earlier last year, after the much criticised case of abduction and forced conversion of two teenage Hindu girls on the eve of Holi in Pakistan’s Sindh, a video was shared by an independent journalist in which the girl could be seen crying while talking about how the fundamentalists harass her even in front of her family members and attempt inappropriate acts with her.
Speaking in Punjabi, she also tells that her uncle along with her have suffered the assault at the hands of perpetrators. The girl also says that she doesn't want to stay there anymore.
In an another incident last month, Islamist mob on 26 January vandalised Mata Rani Bhatiyani Devi temple in Chachro, Tharparkar in Sindh, Pakistan and set fire to Hindu holy books.
On 3 January, angry mob of Islamist pelted stones at the birth place of Guru Nanak in Nankana Sahib which is a holy Sikh pilgrimage site. The mob was led by the family of Mohammad Hassan, the boy who allegedly abducted and converted Sikh girl Jagjit Kaur, who is the daughter of the gurdwara's granthi.
The protesters were raising slogans that they will destroy the Gurdwara and change the name of the place from Nankana Sahib to Ghulam-e-Mustafa.
In another case of abduction and conversion in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a 24 year old Hindu girl named Bharti Bai was kidnapped in the country's Sindh province by assailants under the supervision of local police authorities from her wedding venue in Hala, a city located in Matiari district.