Insight UK, dubbed a social movement of British Hindu and Indian communities, organised a series of coordinated silent vigils across 40 locations in the UK to register a protest against the persecution of minorities in Pakistan.
The vigils were organised on October 2 evening to coincide with Gandhi Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi marked as International Non-Violence Day the world over. The locations covered by the group included Edinburgh, Leeds, York, Manchester, Warrington, Bolton, Liverpool, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, London, Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, Rugby, Sheffield, West Bromwich, Bristol, Swindon, Salisbury, Cheltenham, Swansea, Reading, Slough, Basingstoke, and Cardiff.
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Insight UK said: “British Hindus across the United Kingdom gathered to highlight the helpless condition of minorities in Pakistan, particularly the minor girls in Pakistan.
“After the vigil, the community members petitioned their local MPs to take up this humanitarian issue with the Minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth [Lord Tariq Ahmad] and ask for: the UK government to raise these concerns with the Pakistan government to protect the minorities and safeguard their human rights; and take up this matter with the Indian government to ensure that the citizenship application of the minorities from Pakistan who have taken refuge in India should be expedited.”
The group has put together a report that notes that over 1,000 young Pakistani girls of minority religions are forcibly converted to Islam every year.
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“The latest US State Department report on International Religious Freedom 2020 depicts a very precarious situation for minorities in Pakistan. At the time of independence in 1947, Pakistan had a minority population of about 31 per cent; of these 24 per cent or 7.5 million of the minority population were Hindus. In 75 years, the minority population has dwindled to 4 per cent; of which Hindus form merely 1.6 per cent or 2.5 million,” it notes.
“Insight UK is committed to spreading awareness of the atrocities and brutality that young girls in Pakistan face daily,” the group adds.
