The Pakistan Hindu Sabha (PHS) would initiate a countrywide campaign for abolishing reserved seats for religious minorities and for conducting a census of Hindus in Pakistan, the organisation announced in a statement issued by PHS Press Secretary Subhash Goswami on Sunday.
The organisation made the decision in a meeting held at Prem Nagar, University Road, which was attended by a large number of delegates of Hindu panchayats and youth organisations from Sindh and Punjab.
Addressing the gathering, PHS President Dr Gautam Garag said with 6.5 million people, Hindus are the biggest religious minority in the country, majority of them belonging to the so-called lower castes.
“According to the national census, there were 2.7 million Hindus in 1998. We recently came to know that some senior authorities are going to decrease this number. If this happens, we won’t tolerate it,” he warned.
Talking about reserved seats for religious minorities, he said the majority of the Hindus belong to the so-called lower castes, but the leaders of the mainstream political parties sell assembly seats to business-class or upper-caste Hindus, who make up only five percent of Pakistani Hindus.
He also said, “The ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government has always claimed to support the scheduled-caste community, but the fact is entirely opposite. Look at the assembly seats in Sindh. All three PPP ministers are upper-caste Hindus and they have done nothing for the lower castes in the province. Not just the PPP, but all mainstream political parties have issued party tickets for provincial and national assemblies to business-class Hindus.”