Vacancy: K-P minorities need full-time minister

Non-elected member cannot use funds of Auqaf and minorities affairs department

PESHAWAR: As the case of Baldev Kumar, the alleged killer of the late Soran Singh, is in court pending a decision, religious minorities in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have been suffering because of the absence of a full-time provincial minister for minorities.

The person who got appointed as the coordinator to chief minister in place of Soran Singh has no authority to use Auqaf funds for the betterment of the vulnerable community because a non-elected person cannot use the funds allocated for the community by the Auqaf and minorities affairs department.

After the murder of Singh in April, the budget allocated to the minority communities was presented in the absence of the minister concerned and the majority of minorities and Auqaf budget was allocated to the Haqania seminary and no new development scheme was initiated for religious minorities during the new financial year.



K-P Chief Minister’s Coordinator for Religious Minorities Ravi Kumar told The Express Tribune that he was using the CM’s discretionary funds from the day he was appointed. “Whenever I asked the Auqaf department for the release of development funds, my request was rejected because I am not an elected member of the provincial assembly.”

“I had to be appointed as a legal member of the assembly after the declaration of Baldev as the convict, but as the case is still pending in court my community is suffering,” said Kumar.

He added that his request for immediate release of funds for the event of Diwali was rejected because “I am not a member of parliament though I am third in the priority list submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan by the PTI”.

According to the election commission rules, Kumar had to take the oath to take the seat of the deceased Soran Singh, but due to resistance on his appointment in the K-P Assembly the seat of the late MPA is still vacant.



Minority communities in the province are feeling like orphans because there is no one to solve their problems at the government level.

Radesh Tony, a Sikh community member, told The Express Tribune that no development work has been done after the murder of Soran Singh. “When he was alive, he used to work for the betterment of religious minorities in the province.”

“In the absence of any representative at the government level, there is no one who can address our grievances and solve our problems.”

Haroon Sarbdiyal, a member of the Hindu community, said members of the minorities should be elected like others but the situation is worst as there is no one who can make policies for us and implement them at the government level.

“The coordinator to the chief minister is not empowered enough to solve our problems.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2016.