An official from Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province has admitted that authorities have failed to protect religious minori-ties from hard-line Islamists.
“The intolerance, anger on religious matters and culture of lynching disturbs us,” said Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan chief spokesman of the Punjab government speaking at the May 12 event titled “Securing Punjab’s Diversity” in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province where majority of Christians in the country reside. Punjab also has 60 percent of the country’s population.
As an example, Khan said four people from the Ahmadiyya sect were killed by hardliners during April. “The religious cleansing must stop,” said Khan who is also special assistant to the Punjab chief minister.
Ahmadis, who believe Prophet Mohammed was not the last prophet, have suffered harsh persecution since they were declared non-Muslims by Pakistan in 1974. “We have failed in protecting minorities from forced conversion,” Khan said at the event attended by more than 30 activists, journalists and edu-cationists. “Everybody knows it, why should we hide it?” he asked.
Out of 1,000 Christian and Hindu women forcibly converted to Islam and forcibly married each year in Pakistan, 700 of them are Punjabi Christians, according to the National Commission of Justice and Peace and the Pakistan Hindu Council. Rights group say many of these are under the age of 18 and are married off to Muslims, or forced into bonded labour.
