Islamabad, Nov 10 : The “brazen murder” of three Hindu brothers in Sindh province on Eid-ul-Azha demonstrates that perpetrators believe they can get away with the killing simply because the victims are non-Muslim, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has said.
The murder of the three brothers, all doctors, has caused concern among the minority Hindu community.
According to reports, the three men were gunned down by unidentified armed men following a dispute between Hindus and Muslims in Shikarpur district involving a Muslim girl.
A statement issued by HRCP chairperson Zohra Yusuf said:“HRCP is shocked at the brazen murder of the three Hindu citizens in Shikarpur and shares the sense of outrage with the Hindu community, not least because of the utter failure of the police to prevent killings or arrest killers even though threats of violence had been brought to their notice.” The statement noted that the Hindu community in Shikarpur had “received anonymous calls threatening them of serious consequences” after a reported dispute with a local Muslim tribe three weeks earlier.
The Hindus had subsequently sought protection from police.
“It is alarming that the three men were slain no more than a few meters away from the local police station. The Hindu community has also expressed concern that law enforcement personnel tend to support criminals rather than victims when their community is targeted,” the HRCP said The leading rights groups said it believed that a “spike in faith-based violence in the country in the last few years has been fuelled in no small part by a sense among the perpetrators that they have virtual immunity for murder for all intents and purposes as long as the victims are from a religious minority community”.
The HRCP called on authorities to realise “where they have fallen short in protecting the fundamental rights of the religious minorities, including their right to life.
The government must wake up to the monumental challenge of allaying an acute sense of insecurity and vulnerability among members of religious minority communities.” The group welcomed expressions of concern from top government officials in the wake of the “abhorrent murders”, as Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has described them, but emphasised that “promises of strict action must be followed through and steps taken to reassure the affected community that their tormentors would be held to account”.
The HRCP said that “instead of merely suspending police officials right, left and centre”, the government must devise a mechanism to ensure protection for those vulnerable on account of their faith and train police on how that can be implemented.
