Multiple Temple Attacks In Sindh Over Seema Haider Leave Pakistani Hindu Refugees In India Shaken, Worried For Kin

Dhanraj heard the distressing news two days ago.

He was patiently standing in a queue waiting for his portion of a charitable grocery distribution when he overheard discussions about demolition of a temple in Karachi.

His heart felt heavy and memories of the sacred shrine from his visit last year surfaced, casting a pall of melancholy. Dhanraj, who shifted to India from Pakistan four months ago, quietly thanked his deities for bringing him to safety.

“The temple was our meeting point. A big jattha (group) of us Bagris from Hyderabad would start the pilgrimage to Hinglaj Mata mandir from there,” he told Swarajya.

Pakistani media reported that on Saturday (15 july), residents in Soldier Bazaar area of Karachi city in Sindh province woke up to the jarring sight of the Mari Mata temple having been razed in the dead of the night, leaving the local Hindu community in a state of shock and disbelief.

The demolition was reportedly carried out when the area was without electricity. Diggers and bulldozers were called in; police gave them cover. While the outer wall was spared, the interiors were entirely demolished.

The next day, another temple in Sindh faced attacks. The Radhasoami temple in Kashmore area was fired at with rocket launchers, which luckily didn’t burst. Police blamed the attack on a gang of dacoits.

The temple is patronised by Bagri caste group of Sindhi Hindus, to which Dhanraj belongs.

“This is happening because of Seema Haider. They cannot tolerate a Muslim woman marrying a Hindu man,” said Dhanraj.

On Wednesday (19 July) when Swarajya visited a Pakistani Hindu settlement in Majnu Ka Tila area of Delhi, it was abuzz with conversations around Seema Haider and the temple attacks.

Residents were concerned about their brethren back in Sindh and wished Seema was promptly deported to Pakistan by Indian authorities.

Dhanraj migrated along with his and his brother’s families in a jattha of 27 people, or “27 passports” as they are called by the community in India. They boarded trains and buses to reach the Wagah-Attari border in Punjab’s Amritsar city, and then reached straight to Majnu Ka Tila in bus.

Three brothers and parents of Dhanraj continue to be in Sindh. The plan is that the rest would migrate once Dhanraj finds his footing in India.

“They must be holed up inside their houses, most probably not even going for work,” said Dhanraj, who has not been able to buy a mobile handset yet and is thus unable to directly communicate with his family.

For now, he depends on a cousin who migrated a few years earlier than Dhanraj and possesses a mobile phone.

“India should send Seema back, else our people would continue to be attacked,” said Dhanraj’s sister-in-law Maina. “Although they [majority community in Pakistan] pick up Hindu girls with impunity and forcibly marry them, Hindu men can’t as much as look at their women”.

Seema Ghulam Haider hails from Jakhrani tribe in Sindh, and is a native of Rind Hajana village. Mother to four kids, she made an undocumented entry into India to live with her Hindu partner in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar district adjoining Delhi in May.

Police learnt about her entry and stay in India in June after a lawyer, who was contacted by Seema for a court marriage with Sachin, informed them (read here, here and here).

She is under scanner of the authorities for possible role as a Pakistani spy. This week, she was grilled twice for eight hours by Uttar Pradesh Police's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), but was allowed to go to Sachin’s house in Rabupura village.

Soon after Seema’s case came to light in media, extremists belonging to the majority Muslim community in Sindh issued multiple threats to Hindus of rape, kidnappings and murder.

If she was not ‘returned’ to Pakistan by India, there would be bloodshed against Hindus, armed gangs said in videos uploaded on social media. 

Controversial ‘pir’ Miyan Abdul Haq alias Miyan Mithu, who is heavily involved in conversions of minority Hindus in Sindh to Islam, was among those who have issued the threat.

Besides the threats and consequent attacks, about 30 Hindus are currently held hostage by a gang of dacoits, as per the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The official account of the Commission tweeted on 16 July, “HRCP is alarmed by reports of deteriorating law and order in the districts of Kashmore and Ghotki in Sindh, where some 30 members of the Hindu community - including women and children - have allegedly been held hostage by organised criminal gangs”.

Maina said, “A man named Saahil killed a Hindu woman in Delhi recently. Hindus didn’t retaliate. In Pakistan, if a Hindu man killed a Muslim woman like that, all Hindus would have been wiped out”. Maina was referring to this case, which was reported by Swarajya.

The Majnu Ka Tila camp, housing around 150 Pakistani Hindu families, mostly Bagris, is one of the six such settlements in Delhi.

The Bagri community, one of the most marginalised jaatis, was declared as a Scheduled Caste by Government of Pakistan in 1956. They have traditionally worked in orchards, but are treated as untouchables owing to a reputation that they eat wild animals.

Some attribute their Bagri surname to this occupation (“bagh” means orchard), but others associate that with their supposed roots in India’s Bagar tract in Rajasthan.

An estimated three lakh Bagris live in Sindh.

Dileep, who is in his twenties, came to the camp in 2013. In Pakistan, his father Mohan worked as agricultural labour, earning about Rs 300-400 a day (in Pakistani currency). Here, he drives an autorickshaw that a non-governmental organisation (NGO) gave him for free. The family earns about three times that amount, helped by Dileep and his two teenage brothers.

They fear for their relatives still staying in Sindh, but rue they are too poor to migrate to India. They live in Tando Allahyar city of Sindh.

Dileep learnt about the demolition of Mari Mata temple on Saturday (15 July) itself as he received the information from his relatives. He has seen multiple television reports since then. The family would visit the temple thrice a year, recalling that the area was populated by ‘baniyas’, who were surrounded by Muslim houses.

“The attack on Hindu temples is always a sign of more abductions of girls and attacks on Hindu men,” said Dileep, a concern simultaneously expressed by Hindu activists in Sindh.