One of the few Hindu temples that are still functioning in Pakistan was vandalized by a Muslim mob on December 2020, in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Hindus in that area are now being pressured by the Muslim Clerics to pay the fines on behalf of more than 100 people who actively took part in this attack.
The under-siege minority Hindu community in Pakistan is now under a lot of pressure by clerics and the majority Muslim population to pay fines on behalf as they have already paid fines for 11 key accused totalling Rs 30 lakh (around INR 12.5 lakh) for that attack that took place on 30 December.
As per news reports, thousands of men, led by Islamic religious clerics, arrived at the temple located in the village of Teri in Karak district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region and systematically began to rip apart the temple’s brick by brick and then set it on fire.
The temple was more than 100 years old and was built in 1919 and as per earlier reports the same temple was attacked in 1997 too but, after an order by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, it was renovated in 2015.
The temple even after the Supreme Court verdict has always remained under threat from extremist Muslims and this time the attack happened over suspicion that the temple management was ‘expanding’ the premises and the caretaker of the temple had built a room adjoining the temple to live in.
According to the police, the mob had gathered promising a ‘peaceful’ protest, but incendiary speeches evoked by clerics triggered them into vandalism and violence.
In a report published yesterday (22 November), Pakistan newspaper The Express Tribune has quoted “a Hindu leader” as saying that the Hindu community had to pay fines for 11 men including Jamait Ulemai-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F) district Amir Maulana Mir Zaqeem, former district nazim Karak Rehmat Salam Khattak and Maulana Sharifullah.
Now all the 123 other accused are demanding that the Hindu community pay their fines too and the local administrative head was not helping Hindus rebuild the temple, as he is under the thumb of the clerics who are creating hurdles in the temple’s reconstruction.
As per data, only 30 functional temples are there in Pakistan, the rest have been demolished and taken over.
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