JOIN USProminent Islamic scholars, terming Pakistan “a failed country and a failed state,” appealed to Indian government to take up issues of violent ethnic cleansing in 'the neighbouring nation' at international fora to put an end to the killings of Shia Muslims and other minorities in the region.
Religious leader and noted intellectual Maulana Sayed Ahmedali Abidi of Jama Masjid Dongri and Principal of Houza Ilmiya Najifi House, speaking at a press meet here on Tuesday, said that media reports in the past few months indicate that the intensity of 'attacks on minorities in Pakistan is increasing with each passing day.'
“Not that it was absent earlier. The sectarian attacks on Shia Muslim and other minorities like Hindus, Christians and other sects have been taking place for decades. But now it seems that the killers are hand in glove with the power elites there and have started targetting the intelligentsia class...thinkers, poets, writers, doctors, teachers belonging to minorities...are being systematically eliminated.
“The streets reek of fear. Nobody knows when they step out in lanes of Karachi, Quetta, Baluchistan or Peshawar...whether they will come back. The scene is grim. And what is worrisome is that international bodies like United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have not bothered to take cognisance of this genocide taking place.
And neither is Indian government willing to take up a stand in international fora,” he said.
Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi, general secretary, All India Shia Muslim Personal Law Board, also spoke on the 'sinister pattern of killings' in Pak.