INDIA PROTESTS, SUMMONS PAK DIPLOMAT OVER TEMPLE ATTACK

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday summoned the Pakistani charge d’affaires to protest a mob attack on a Hindu temple in Pakistan’s Punjab province and to call for steps to ensure the safety of minorities.

On Wednesday, hundreds of people vandalised the temple at Bhong village in Rahim Yar Khan district and blocked a nearby highway after a nineyear-old Hindu boy, who had been accused of urinating in an Islamic seminary, was granted bail by a local court.

Images and video footage of the desecration of the temple were widely shared on social media platforms by people in both countries. Pakistan’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed took cognisance of the incident on Thursday after parliamentarian Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, the patron-inchief of the Pakistan Hindu Council, met him to discuss the temple attack.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told a regular news briefing that Pakistani charge d’affaires Aftab Hasan Khan was “summoned and a firm protest was lodged, expressing our grave concerns at this reprehensible incident and the continued attacks on the freedom of religion of the minority community and their places of religious worship”.

“Within the last year itself, various temples and gurdwaras have been attacked, including the Mata Rani Bhatiyani Mandir in Sindh in January 2020, Gurdwara Sri Janamsthan in January 2020, and a Hindu temple in Karak in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in December 2020,” he said.