UK rejects Pakistan's advances, Islamic conversion cleric sanctioned

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s plea for the world to look at his country anew and view it as a “promising emerging market full of opportunities” has been rejected by London. Britain, meanwhile, sanctioned Muslim cleric Mian Mithu for forced conversion of non-Muslims in the Sindh province, once again highlighting the precarious situation of minorities in Pakistan, including Christians.

Bilawal made his pitch while on an official visit to Singapore. His call has gone unheeded, while the UK has gone a step further and sanctioned Sufi cleric Maulana Abdul Haq alias Mian Mithu, who has been actively involved in human rights violations particularly against Pakistani Hindus.

A PPP lawmaker between 2008 and 2013, Mithu was expelled by the party after the forced conversion and marriage of Rinkle Kumari, a girl from the minority Hindu community.

The Dawn (10 December 2022) quoted a statement by the British High Commission in Islamabad: “The UK takes freedom of religion or belief very seriously and is committed to protecting minorities worldwide. The new package of sanctions targets those violating fundamental freedom.

This includes Mian Abdul Haq, a cleric of the Bharchundi Sharif shrine in Ghotki, Sindh, who is responsible for forced marriages and forced religious conversions of non-Muslims and minors. This sanctions package does not include any other Pakistani national.” The Hindu community of Sindh and human rights bodies have frequently accused Mian Mithu of committing crimes against children for years by kidnapping and forcefully marrying them to Muslim men.

They have charged that his activities are publicly known and that the Pakistani state has been complicit in his crimes. Hindus constitute 2.14 per cent of Pakistan’s population and mostly live in Sindh.

The UK sanctions effectively mean that designated individuals will be unable to do any business or undertake economic activity with UK citizens or companies and also that they will be denied entry to the UK. Mian Mithu is among the list of thirty entities sanctioned by the UK. Despite the 2012 controversy over the forced conversion of a Hindu girl and many that have since followed, Mithu was wooed by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in 2015. He was invited to contest the National Assembly on the PTI ticket. Although he was not admitted to the party because of protests from the Hindu community, the Imran Khan Government invited Mithu for consultations at the Pakistan Islamic Council on religious issues.

The World Sindhi Congress (WSC) thanked the UK government for sanctioning Mian Mithu, who has been involved in forced conversions of Sindhi Hindu girls in Sindh. For the past two decades, the WSC has worked to end religious minorities’ persecution, including forced conversions. A WSC statement said that in the last three years, it had actively interacted with the All Parties Parliamentary Committee for Pakistani Minorities (APPG-Pakistani Minorities), which is a cross-party parliamentary committee to look into the violence and violations against religious minorities in Pakistan. The WSC met with the committee several times to inform them of the gravity of the crimes against Sindhi Hindus. Last year, the Committee issued a detailed report titled ‘Abductions, Forced Conversions, and Forced Marriages of Religious Minority Women and Girls in Pakistan.’ The APPG report mentioned the role of Mian Mithu in this atrocious practice. The WSC Congress urged the UK government to implement the report’s additional recommendations to provide relief to religious minorities in Pakistan, notably Sindhi Hindus.

Mian Mithu came into the limelight in February in the Rinkle Kumari case, when she declared herself a Muslim in court, which her parents and Hindu community leaders alleged was done under duress. TheNew York Times reported, “Mithu triumphantly led the new convert from the courthouse, parading her before thousands of cheering supporters.” Rinkle’s father Nand Laal said, “Mian Mithu is a terrorist and a thug. He takes the girls and keeps them in his home for sexual purposes,” noting that Mithu’s armed guards had escorted his daughter to court appearances and news conferences. Rinkle Kumari’s case went all the way to Pakistan’s Supreme Court, but she never gained freedom from her forced marriage. Even her father, Nand Laal, fled to Lahore soon after accusing Mian Mithu of abduction and forced conversion. He found refuge in a Sikh Gurdwara in Lahore, in Punjab province, with the rest of his family. A few years later, riots broke out (16 September 2019) in Ghotki in Pakistan’s Sindh province, after a Hindu school principal was kidnapped at the behest of Mian Mithu and charged with Pakistan’s stringent blasphemy law, where punishment on conviction leads to death. The riots began when a teenage student at the Sindh Public School in Ghotki had uploaded a video accusing his Hindu school teacher Nautan Daas of blasphemy on Facebook. The student’s father Abdul Aziz Rajput registered an FIR against Daas, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on 15 September 2019.

In November 2022, the WSC held its 34th International Conference on Sindh in London. Addressing the International Conference, Dr Rubina Shaikh, chairperson of the WSC, stressed that Sindh is witnessing the “worst period in history.” During the conference, the WSC urged international institutions including the UN to file a “case of ecocide” against the Pakistani government. Dr. Sheikh said(23 November 2022), “Sindh is going through the worst period in history. Sindhis have to make a joint, systematic and united struggle for the right to self-determination for their homeland.” The WSC proposed resolutions on various issues of Sindh, in which it was emphasised that the people of 23 districts of Sindh continue to live a “very difficult life” and blamed federal and provincial governments for it. The case of Mian Mithu clearly shows that the status of minorities in Pakistan continues to be grim. That Mian Mithu remains relevant politically and is used as tool in Pakistan’s war against its minorities has necessitated the UK to sanction him. This is a clear signal to the international community that Pakistan needs to mend its ways. Islamabad may have managed to slip out of the FATF Grey List, it continues to be under watch for its treatment of minorities.