Atrocities on minorities in Pak: SAD urges MEA to raise issue at UN

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday urged the external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, to raise the issue of “atrocities being committed by Pakistan on minorities”

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday urged the external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, to raise the issue of “atrocities being committed by Pakistan on minorities” in the United Nations.

HT Image

The SAD also asked Jaishankar to seek assurance from Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan that assets and lives of minorities would be protected and all those responsible for the hate attack on Sikhs as well as their shrines would be arrested and given exemplary punishment.

SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal led the delegation which called on the external affairs minister and included senior SAD leaders and the heads of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Committee and Patna Sahib Committee.

Badal said from 40,000 in the 2002 census, the Sikh population in Pakistan had come down to around 5,000. “This itself is a proof of forced conversions,” he added.

Badal said the delegation members, including Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Prem Singh Chandumajra, Naresh Gujral, DSGMC president Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Takht Patna Sahib Committee president Avtar Singh Hit and Harmeet Singh Kalka, also briefed the external affairs minister that the situation was so bad in Pakistan that even those looking after gurdwaras were not safe.

The SAD delegation also pointed out that the Pakistani government should be asked to take prompt and exemplary action in case any minority community is targeted in any manner.

“If the government had acted decisively in the case of the attack on Sikh community members at Nankana Sahib gurdwara, it would not have set off the chain reaction which led to the killing of a Sikh youth in Peshawar,” Badal said.