India calls for action after Sikh man shot dead in Pak
ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI: A young Sikh man was shot dead in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar a day after an angry mob threatened to storm the Nankana Sahib Gurdwara, prompting India on Sunday to call on Pakistan to take immediate action against the perpetrators of such “heinous acts”.
The body of Ravinder Singh, the 25-year-old brother of Harmeet Singh, the first Pakistani Sikh to join the electronic media, was found in a stormwater drain on Sunday with a bullet injury to the head, according to senior superintendent of police Sajjad Khan.
Singh was shot dead in Chamkani area of Peshawar on Saturday night. At about midnight on Saturday, one of the deceased’s brothers received a call from Singh’s phone and an unidentified man spoke about where the body could be found, Khan told Dawn newspaper.
The Sikh man’s killers are yet to be identified and police are yet to establish a motive for the killing.
Singh reportedly worked in Malaysia and returned to his home at Shangla in Khyberpakhtunkhwa province last month to get married. He had
come to Peshawar to do some shopping ahead of his wedding in February, police officials said.
Harmeet Singh appealed to Pakistanis to highlight the incident so that his brother’s killers are brought to justice. “We do not have personal enmity with anyone,” he said. He added that Sikhs were being repeatedly targeted and there is no protection for Pakistan’s minorities.
India strongly condemned Singh’s murder, describing it as “the targeted killing of [a] minority Sikh community member in Peshawar that follows the recent despicable vandalism and desecration of the holy Gurdwara Sri Janam Asthan at Nankana Sahib and the unresolved case of abduction, forced conversion and marriage of a Sikh girl, Jagjit Kaur”.
A statement from the external affairs ministry said India called on the Pakistan government to “stop prevaricating and take immediate action to apprehend and give exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of these heinous acts”. Pakistan “should act in defence of their own minorities instead of preaching sermons about it to other countries”, the statement said in an apparent reference to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent comments on the status of India’s minorities.
On Friday, an angry mob of Muslims surrounded Nankana Sahib Gurdwara, the shrine built at the birthplace of Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak, and threatened to occupy the building if some people detained in connection with the alleged forcible conversion of Jagjit Kaur were not released. Hundreds of people joined the protest, which ended on Friday evening after officials intervened. A sizeable number of Sikhs were caught within the gurdwara and the protest created fear among Sikh residents.
India had condemned the protest, which Pakistan had sought to play down as the outcome of an argument between two groups of people. Imran Khan condemned the incident at Nankana Sahib on Sunday.
Leaders of India and Pakistan have been taking potshots at each other in recent days over the treatment of minorities in both countries. Indian leaders have criticised the lack of protection for Pakistan’s Hindus and Sikhs, and cases of forced conversion and marriage of women from minorities, while Khan and other Pakistani leaders have criticised India’s new citizenship law and other measures that they claimed discriminates against Muslims.