Why was a Hindu saint's tomb attacked twice in Pakistan?

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In Pakistan, a century-old mausoleum of a Hindu saint was destroyed in December by a riotous mob of Muslims. This is the second time at this holy site.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ordered the officials of Karak district, located in the northwest of the country, to clear the way to rebuild the tomb of Shri Paramhansji Maharaj. But the Hindu society of the country is feeling unsafe due to this attack and the government is being accused that it has failed to provide security to the religious minorities of the country.

The population of Hindus in Pakistan is less than 2 percent. Prejudice for Hindus is deeply rooted in the country.

In 1997, there was the first attack on the tomb of Shri Paramhansji Maharaj after which in 2015 the Supreme Court ordered to rebuild it. Since then people of Hindu society were engaged in its reconstruction.

In the same process, this community bought the house associated with the Samadhi and the work of repairing this place was going on as a resting place for Hindu devotees.

Due to this, the local Muslims were angry that Hindu society is expanding this ‘temple’.

A rally taken against it in December suddenly turned into a riotous mob.

How was the attack?

The rally was held on 30 December and was led by local cleric Mohammad Sharif, who belongs to the religious party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. saint’s tomb attacked It is the same cleric who led the 1997 attack.

Eyewitnesses say that the cleric provoked the people attending the rally and then the mob broke the tomb of the tomb with hammers and set fire to it.

Pakistan’s Minorities Commission report states that valuables were damaged during this period, including beautiful wooden doors and windows of Burmese teak wood, as well as white marble stones of the tomb of the Hindu saint. Transported.

The report says, “The whole picture … shows a great devastation.”

A hindu temple was demolished by religious extremists in karak today. It is very shameful moment for us because it reflects the way of how we treat minorities in our country.
You can't run a federation unless and until the rights of minorities are protected. Strongly condemnable. pic.twitter.com/PJOKZA3a1l
— Ihtesham Afghan (@IhteshamAfghan) December 30, 2020

However, during this rally, Samadhi also had police and security guards but they failed to stop the rioting crowd. After the attack, Pakistan’s Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmad said, “They have escaped with impunity.” He also said that this incident has caused ‘international shame for Pakistan’.

109 people, including Maulvi Mohammad Sharif, have been arrested in this case. Apart from this, 92 police personnel have been suspended, including SP and DSP on duty.

Local police inspector general Sanaullah Abbasi said, “92 police personnel were present at the scene but they showed cowardice and carelessness.”

At that time there was no Hindu person at the Samadhi, because devotees come to that place only during the religious journey and no one lives there. Because of this, no one was injured and no one was killed in this incident.

Why is the dispute after all?

This mausoleum was constructed in Terry village of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 1919.

Devotees of Shri Paramhansji Maharaj are in Pakistan as well as in India and many parts of the world.

Wasim Khatak, a teacher, journalist and researcher living in the village, says that there used to be a large population of Hindus in this area who used to trade and give loans. Hindus and Muslims used to live in a mixed culture in this area.

Khatak states that Shri Paramhansji Maharaj ‘knew the Quran by heart and used to give spiritual guidance from the book to his Muslim followers.

Hindus had built this mausoleum but after the partition of India-Pakistan in 1947, the Hindu population from Terry village left their properties and moved to India.

The government formed a trust which maintained these properties and sometimes devotees kept coming to visit this samadhi. The property associated with the Samadhi was maintained by the followers of the Hindu saint who later converted to Islam but maintained it here.

In 1960, the man who took care of the mausoleum died and his sons sold the place to two local Muslim families. After this, the arrival of devotees to this samadhi became very difficult because they had to come from two houses to come here, which was also a matter of privacy of a family.

In the mid-1990s, the Hindu community bought a house to go to the tomb, but this purchase came at a time when the Pakistani government had a hold of local Muslim clerics.

In 1996, when Maulvis came to know about the news of buying a house, Maulvi Mohammad Sharif declared the Hindu community to be ‘agents of America and India’ and led a mob to disband the temple.

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