Political shift: ‘Forced conversions are turning minorities towards PML-N’

Hindu leaders share disappointment with the indifferent attitude of the PPP-led government.

KARACHI: A Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MNA is involved in kidnapping and converting Hindu girls, yet his party did nothing about the issue, lamented Bherulal Balani on Sunday.

Balani, a former Hindu parliamentarian from Thatta, recently decided to join the PPP’s archrival, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

As the PML-N continues to make its presence felt across the political spectrum in Sindh, the party also seems to be intent on recruiting leaders of religious minorities, especially former Hindu parliamentarians.

Balani was a member of the Sindh Assembly in 1997, when the Nawaz Sharif government was in power.

While explaining his decision, Balani said that as minorities continue to be subjected to discrimination, he believes that only the PML-N could address their grievances.

Balani said that the Hindu community was disappointed by the PPP government’s indifferent attitude towards the forced conversions of Rinkle Kumari, Asha Kumari and Lata Kumari. Dozens of Hindu girls are forcibly converted and married off to Muslim men on a monthly basis in rural Sindh, claimed Balani. “How can the government protect us if it cannot prevent our women from being forcibly converted?”

Balani did not disclose the names of other Hindu leaders who were ready to join the PML-N, or those whom the party was currently courting. However, he added that people from Thatta, Mirpurkhas, and Larkana were expected to join the PML-N in the near future.

Meanwhile, the PML-N’s central minority wing would hold a meeting, to be chaired by MNA Darkhan Lal, in the city on Tuesday. PML-N Karachi deputy secretary general Asad Usman told The Express Tribune that the party was expected to announce a strategy to attract the support of minority voters at the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2012.