Fearing Taliban, Pak Hindus take Thar Express to India

In the past four years, some 5,000 Hindus may have crossed over from Pakistan, never to return. It has not been easy abandoning their homes, sometimes even their families, but they say they had no choice: they had to flee the Taliban.

It started as a trickle in 2006, the year the Thar Express was flagged off. The weekly train starts from Karachi, enters India at Munabao, a border town in Barmer, and runs up to Jodhpur. In the first year, 392 Hindus crossed over.

This grew to 880 in 2007. The next year, the number was 1,240, and this year, till August, over 1,000 have crossed over. They just keep extending their visas and hope to become Indian citizens.

Incidentally, these are official figures. Sources say there are many more who cross over and melt in the local milieu. And officials have a soft corner for these people, most of whom have harrowing stories to tell.

Ranaram, who used to live in the Rahimyar district of Pakistan’s Punjab, says he fell prey to the Taliban. His wife was kidnapped, raped and forcibly converted to Islam. His two daughters were also forcibly converted. Ranaram, too, had to accept Islam for fear of his life. He thought it best to flee with his two daughters; his wife was untraceable.

Dungaram, another migrant, says atrocities against Hindus in Pakistan have increased in the past two years after the ouster of Musharraf. "We won't get permanent jobs unless we convert to Islam."

Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangathan, a group working for the refugees in Barmer and Jaisalmer, says there's unfortunately no proper refugee policy in India even though people from Pakistan reach here in large numbers.

He said in 2004-05, over 135 families were given Indian citizenship but the rest are still living illegally in the country and are often tortured by police because they don't have proper citizenship certificates. "In December 2008, over 200 Hindus were converted to Islam in Mirpur Khas town of Pakistan. But there are several others who want to stick to their religion but there’s no safety for them in Pakistan."

Immigration officer at Munabao railway station, Hetudan Charan, says the arrival of Hindu migrants had suddenly increased as over 15 to 16 families were reaching India every week. “None of them admit they are to settle here but seeing their baggage, we easily understand,’’ he said.

Ravi Kumar, who was Barmer collector till his transfer two days back, said the government in 2007 had given permanent citizenship to a few Pakistani immigrants.

Sources: Times of India

Sikhs, Hindus dread Taliban tax in northwest Pakistan

Sitting on a broken chair outside a Sikh temple in a crowded part of Peshawar, Aman Deep Singh is frantic about his future after losing his business in the tribal district of Khyber.

When the Taliban gave Sikhs and Hindus an ultimatum — leave the land of your forefathers or pay an Islamic tax in protection money — Singh packed up and left his native Tirah valley for Peshawar.

‘We were living under fear. Fear of militants, fear of Lashkar-e-Islam and fear of other armed groups,’ said Singh, his hair swept up in a turban, a long beard touching his abdomen and thick moustache covering his upper lip.

He swapped a general store in the mountains for unemployment in the northwest capital, where he struggles to feed the nine members of his family.

Aman Deep is a fake name. He wants his real name hidden for his security.



As light fades to dusk, Sikhs gather for evening prayers at the Joga Singh gurdwara (temple) in a narrow street of Peshawar’s Dabgari bazaar. Each man removes his shoes, washes his feet in a small pool of water and covers his head.

‘I am not the only one. About 400 Sikh and 57 Hindu families migrated from the town of Bara and Tirah,’ said Singh.

Sikhs and Hindus are tiny communities in Pakistan. In the last year, hundreds have fled their homes after receiving death threats from the Taliban and other militant groups in an increasingly unstable northwest.

After US troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Taliban and Al-Qaeda ideologues fled to Pakistan, where they have increasingly focused their campaign and where 2,000 people have perished in bomb attacks over the past two years.

Pakistan launched a major offensive in the northwest this summer, under pressure from the United States, after Taliban fighters made deep territorial inroads.

Militants need an endless supply of funds for their weapons, communications and training.

Kidnapping, drugs and extortion are typical sources of income. Taxation and protection scams are others, and vulnerable non-Muslims are easy prey.

Local Sikhs mostly trade in cloth, and also run grocer, garment and herbal medicine shops. They are people who can afford the 1,000 rupees per man, per year ‘jizya’ tax.


In the region of Orakzai, the Taliban demanded the tax of adult male Sikhs, forcibly occupying Sikh-owned shops and houses. After two months, the tax spread to Khyber, the legendary tribal region on the main supply line to Afghanistan.

It was there that Lashkar-e-Islam, a group headed by Mangal Bagh, announced Sikhs and Hindus would be free to live anywhere — as long as they paid jizya.

But threats made the situation increasing tense. Hundreds of Sikh and Hindu families fled to nearby areas, especially Peshawar.

‘Minorities in Orakzai and Khyber were warned by some militant groups to become Muslims or leave the area. This was a real threat,’ Singh said.

‘They’re running a parallel government. Hindu and Sikh families did not feel safe, in Orakzai, in Bara and in Tirah. We preferred to migrate, at least here we can breathe in peace and feel safe,’ he said.

The same sentiment was echoed by other shopkeepers from Bara.

‘No female Muslim or non-Muslim is allowed out without a male relative. All women, even the elderly, have to wear a burka,’ said Gulab Khan Afridi, a 38-year-old Muslim.

Gulab Khan said growing a beard and wearing a cap had become compulsory, otherwise Lashkar extremists would dole out beatings or a 200 to 500-rupee fine.
‘Can you believe it? A man cannot wear a ring in Bara,’ he added.

Much like the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Islam acts like police, enforces prayers five times a day and punishes people accused of prostitution and other vices.

Sardar Sahib Singh, a Sikh leader in the district assembly in Peshawar, said his community paid 150,000 rupees a year to Lashkar-e-Islam in protection money.

‘Our community is better off. We only pay tax, while Muslims have to work, like being guards in Lashkar trenches,’ he said. But families are dwindling. ‘At first there were 500 Sikh families in Bara, now only 150,’ he said.

Scholars say only a true Islamic government, no one else, can collect jizya and on condition that those who pay feel safe, but Lashkar-e-Islam insisted the tax was proper payment for services rendered.

‘Women, children and the handicapped have been exempted,’ Misri Gul, a spokesman for the group, told AFP.

‘Jizya is according to sharia. We will provide them protection in exchange for this,’ he said.

Pakistani Hindus Hounded Out

Here is a very interesting link which tells us about how Pakistani Hindus are threatened by the Taleban while the Government looked the other side. Here is the original link: Pakistani Hindus Face The Heat.
Here is the original content:

No more safe at home, Pak Hindus flee to India:
In May 2008, Pakistan's tribal province of Orakzai was in the news. The majority Muslims did not allow the Hindus to cremate their dead at the place that had been the designated crematorium for over a century.

The next month, the Pakistan government signed a peace treaty with the Taliban. It was among many other such treaties and not much was made of it, especially since the latter agreed that it would recognise the writ of the government.

But in the next couple of months, the few Hindu families began facing the heat.


"It was like the smoke before the fire. The Taliban's presence was not very evident in the following two months. But things were becoming obvious. A group of locals who supported the Taliban gave us the distinct feeling that we were not wanted there," says Jagdish Lal Sharma, who says he is a Pandit from the region.

Though there were no direct threats, the Hindu families were never left in any doubt about their minority status. Sometimes it would be a warning not to stare at Muslim women for long, at other times, it would be the subtle coercion of the local administrators to sell their land when the situation was still normal. The families were weighing their options until October when they were asked to wear a red patch in their pagadis (turban).

"We were told Hindus are not supposed to wish a Muslim even inadvertently and that is why, in order to make it obvious for a passing Muslim that we were Hindus, we ought to have some element of red in our headgear," Hardwari Lal, who is now in Amritsar with his family of 13, says.

In Amrtisar, they found Surinder Kumar Billa, a local religious leader at the Durgaina temple in Amritsar, who has promised to help them get Indian citizenship.

Your temple is a threat to our religion:

Jagdish Lal Sharma fled with his wife and five kids:
I am a Pandit and also did some hakeemi on the side with natural medicines. There was no problem in our village till very recently. I had a very small temple near my home. One day, some other villagers came and said the presence of your temple is a threat to our religion. It should not be there. I pleaded with them to spare the temple but had no other option but to take the idols inside the house.


On October 2, we got a visa to India and I had a cousin in Amritsar. But the procedure is such that, I had to first go to Delhi -- where I knew no one -- and get my papers to come to Amritsar. You know very well how it is getting work done with the government. By the time I got the required papers to come to Amritsar, most of the money I had with me was spent.

It is a good feeling having at last come to Amritsar. The Punjab region is more or less the same on both sides. But we do not know how long we are going to be here. That is one issue we are worried about. The other is what we are going to do about our children. They do not know Punjabi and hence cannot get admitted to a school here. We have to find a way.

Our forefathers thought that staying back in Pakistan was a good idea. Now, we are thinking about our children and want them to grow up here in India.

Our neighbours are behaving differently today:

Hardwari Lal, 13 family members:
I had a general store in my village. I live in a region where the Hindus have slowly disappeared. By the time I left, there was only one other family (which has also moved to India.) I have four sisters. My main concern is to find a match for them. I want to marry them to Hindus.

Apart from this, my main worry is the land I lost. My family owned a considerable amount of land worth several lakhs. As things started getting worse, there was a lot of pressure on me to sell the land to the locals.

The government was helpless. The central authorities in Peshawar could not do anything to help me. It was the local authorities who called the shots.


The local tehsildar (revenue officer) struck the deal like he was supporting me, but finalized it for 10 per cent of the original price. I had no other go but to concede. The local authorities are nothing but political agents for the radicals in these regions.

They used to come knocking and say no photos, no pictures, no idols. We were forced to remove all the family photos and idols of gods though it was inside our house. That is when I realised how different these same people were earlier. Samay ka prabhaav padta hi hai(Time takes its toll).

It is not like the liberals have disappeared and radicals have moved in. It is the same neighbours who used to be pillars of strength in the past year who are behaving differently today. That is what pains me the most. The only Hindus who are better off are those in the Shia-dominated areas. There Shias protect the Hindus like their own against the Sunni fundamentalists. One thing I observed is that the Sikh people are somehow getting along. I admire them for that.

I never got wind of what is coming:

Avtari Lal Sharma:
I am also a medical practitioner. Unlike these people, I moved to Peshawar about two years ago. I never got wind of what is coming when I was there.

These people (he is Hardwari Lal's cousin) then started telling me how the situation was getting worse in Orakzai. So, when they decided to leave the country, I also decided to go with them. I wondered whether I did the right thing then, but now I am convinced it was the right thing to do.

As I sit here talking with you, I hear that they have reached Peshawar and signed a pact there too. Peshawar is about 250 km from Orakzai. Only now I realise... what is 250 km in these days and times. I am thankful I am here.


There are still many people who are there and want to leave. Most of them do not have relatives in Delhi. They do not have the money to go to Delhi first and pay a lot to get a permit to visit Punjab, where most of their relatives are. The best thing the government can do to us is to give a Punjab visa so that we can directly come here.

Another reason why most people hesitate is the money. They don't have much to start with, and then the Rs 10 they have becomes Rs 5 in India. So people really do not want to take the risk of losing everything. They are waiting to see if things will go back to normal.

So, if India is really interested in the welfare of the Hindus, they should issue Punjab visas. That is the only way those who are not well off can escape to safety.

There has always been shadow of the Taliban:

Gulzari Lal Sharma:
I had a small shop. Things began getting worse before our eyes. I got really scared when they began enforcing the pagadi rule. They asked us to have some sort of red patch in our headgear. I do not know what purpose it would have served. All our neighbours knew we were Hindus. And we hardly left the village. It was really scary.

There has always been the shadow of the Taliban in the recent times in my place. In October it got really worse. The women in the family were harassed a lot. I had a little land and sold it for a decent price when I decided to leave the place.


The one thing I considered was the future of my children and when I thought about it, it was clear to me that they can't grow up in that environment. As we left, we were really worried about reaching Peshawar. Not just because we were Hindus, but that stretch was generally such a dangerous one and totally in control of the militants, even normal Pakistanis were scared to take that road.

We somehow made that distance of 250 km and reached Peshawar. From there we went to Lahore where we waited for our visas. The moment we got it, we left on the Samjhauta Express. Our permits are till 2010. Some have it till 2011.

These things are all in the hands of local authorities. All I hope for now is that we are not harassed when the duration lapses. We are pleading the Indian government for a right to stay here and hope we get it.