Campaign launched to ascertain exact number of Hindus in Pakistan

A campaign has been launched to collect details of Hindu families in Pakistan to ascertain the exact number of members in the minority community.

The All Pakistan Hindu Panchayat (APHP) has launched the campaign.

"Please collect the data of Hindus living in your city and send it to the APHP. APHP is working to gather all Hindus on one platform. Also mention an active person, president or Mukhi's name of that city, so that in case of any emergency APHP can contact them," read a post on the Facebook page of APHS.

Talking to mediapersons, APHP General Secretary Ravi Dawani said it had launched the drive to collect data of Hindu families in Pakistan and for the purpose it has written to all Panchayats and notables.

"The prime purpose of this exercise is to identify exact number of Hindus in Pakistan and give this data to the federal government so that any future scheme for Hindus could be introduced keeping this number in mind. Also, we can talk about the representation of the Hindu community in the state assemblies," Dawani said.

There are reports that some Hindu families in Pakistan are hiding their identities because of 'safety concerns' and they have named themselves as non-Hindus.

The Pakistan Hindu Panchayat is the leading socio-political representative organisation of the Hindu community in Pakistan.

Hindus in Pakistan approximately make up 2 per cent of the total population, which is around 3 million people.

The Hindu minority has seats reserved in the National Assembly and can also vote for their local candidates.

Hindus are mainly concentrated in Sindh province where they form nearly 8 per cent of the population.