Booking a Hindu school teacher in false blasphemy case is politically motivated: World Sindhi Congress chairperson Rubina

Sindhi activists have said that the Hindu school principal who was booked in a false blasphemy case was "politically motivated" and this case is linked to "our overall systematic suppression and bullying of Hindu Sindhis in the region."

Rubina Greenwood, Chairperson of World Sindhi Congress, told ANI: "We feel this is a deliberate and motivated incident to distract the people of Sindh from important issues such as Karachi going to the federal government."

Greenwood said the move is "fully politically motivated. This case is linked to our overall systematic suppression and bullying of Hindu Sindhis."

She asked how can a 15-year-old student could accuse a professor, who is extremely respectable in the Muslim Sindhi community as well as the Hindu community in the region.

Demonstrations began in Ghotki town of Sindh on Saturday after an FIR was filed against Notal Mal, the school teacher, belonging to the minority Hindu community, by Abdul Aziz Rajput, who alleged the principal had committed blasphemy, Dawn reported.

Following this, protesters took to the streets and demanded the arrest of the principal and issued a call for a shutter-down strike.

Several videos of stick-wielding protesters had gone viral on social media on Sunday, in which they were seen desecrating a Hindu temple and damaging the school where the alleged incident occurred.

Lakhu Luhana, secretary-general of the World Sindhi Congress, said, "This is a very very sad issue. This is a systematic design by Pakistan."

Luhana further noted that Sindh produces around 70 per cent of gas in Pakistan and some of the largest gas fields are in Ghotki itself. In addition, a large Hindu Sindhi community also resides here.

"They want to create a situation of fear and coerce them to leave. This is a part of their nefarious design. As a result lot of damages have been done as a result of these design," he added.

The incident has come at a time when Pakistan has been ranting up its diabolic rhetoric of the so-called mistreatment of minorities in India, particularly Muslims, ever since New Delhi decided to abrogate Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has been repeatedly slammed by the international community for not taking stringent measures to protect its minority communities, despite the country's Prime Minister Imran Khan vowing to protect them on numerous occasions.

In Pakistan, religious persecution of minority communities, including Sikhs, Hindus, and Christians are regularly reported.

Recently, Baldev Kumar, a former MLA from Imran Khan's ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said that minorities are not safe in Pakistan. Baldev is in India along with his family to seek political asylum.