Category: 1. Pakistan

“I have a problem with the use of the term ‘minority’. It only serves to otherise religious groups within the country and reinforce existing divides. We are all equal citizens of Pakistan.”

Christians like Pastor Daniel were among hundreds gathered at Karachi’s YMCA on Sunday for the Minority Rights March, which, ironically, was celebrated a day earlier since “minorities wouldn’t get a day off to celebrate it”.

Jinnah’s oft-quoted speech of Pakistani citizens being free to go to temples and places of worship remains relegated to the history textbooks since the lived realities for religious minorities across Pakistan are far from that freedom once promised.

“Christians like me aren’t allowed to preach their religion, and seldom can we practice it without the fear of the supposed majority,” said Daniel of Karachi’s Philadelphia Pentecostal Church.

Jinnah’s speech and his very upbringing were woven through the day’s itinerary. The speakers emphasised that his early education was at schools founded by religious minorities, to whom these schools now remain largely inaccessible.

Sunday’s march centred around two main demands: the denationalisation of educational institutions, and an end to forced conversions.

“The biggest discrimination against the Christian community and minority communities in general is that the institutions we built, the institutions that equipped Jinnah to become Quaid of the country, have now been captured under elitist policies and are inaccessible to the general minority population,” Luke Victor, an organiser at the march, told Dawn.com.

Victor explained that the denationalisation policy has been in place for the past 40 years, but educational institutions still haven’t been returned to the church administration.

“We have a right under Article 22 to manage our own institutions, but the nationalisation policy is ultra vires of that,” Victor explained. Article 22 of the Constitution outlines “safeguards as to educational institutions in respect of religion”.

“It’s sort of a robbery of our heritage, of our educational institutions.”

Other speakers emphasised how former premier Benazir Bhutto was empowered by her alma mater, Karachi Grammar School — founded by the city’s first chaplain, Reverend Henry Brereton — but it hardly has any Christian students today.

“Systemic discrimination and biased policies have kept minorities away from institutions they once founded and thrived in. They now face a state-created cycle of educational exclusion,” a post on the Minority Rights March’s official X account said.

On the other hand, Christian-founded public schools like the YMCA lie vacant and misused after being brought under government control as part of the nationalisation policy.

Several points made at the march were amplified speeches of a robust social media campaign that the Minority Rights March team had begun ahead of the event. #EducationForAll, #GiveBackOurInstitutions, #StopForcedConversions and #MeraMazhabMeriMarzi were just some of the hashtags across the team’s social media, which were spotted on posters too.

“The state has stolen our educational institutions from us,” one speaker chanted to applause from a colourful sea of participants dressed in quintessentially Sindhi chunri prints, munching on papad and bhel sold by vendors who followed the crowd as they marched to the Arts Council Chowk. The crowd was a microcosm of what minority communities in Pakistan tend to look like: intergenerational, close-knit, small but mighty.

End to forced conversions

One of the many slogans reverberating through the crowd of 500-something
people was ‘mazhab nahi, soch badlo’ (change your mindset, not religion), which called for an end to forced conversions of Hindu girls.

“If you can’t get a driver’s licence or own a gun before the age of 18, then why are forced conversions allowed before that age?” asked one speaker who runs a private shelter for young minority girls who were forcibly converted.

The state’s failure in this case is two-pronged; on the one hand, it fails to protect religious minorities from being forcibly converted. On the other hand, the police refuse to recover those who have been abducted and converted, claiming the girls have now embraced Islam and the parents must stop seeking their recovery.

According to a study by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Sindh, a province that is host to the largest Hindu population in the country, has seen a mass exodus of Hindus towards India.

“We have a total of 11 demands today, the foremost being an end to forced conversion of Hindu girls,” said organiser Rampal Singh, who donned a sea-green turban and white kurta shalwar, standing in solidarity with his Hindu brethren.

“This is not a protest but a celebration for us,” Singh proclaimed, vowing to stand with his Muslim brothers on August 14 as “they are standing with us today”.

“I am a son of this soil, and all we are asking today is that, please hear us out and our issues.”

Suhani Naveej, of the Jaguti Foundation, detailed her work on the issue of forced conversion. “Many Hindu parents are now refusing to get their daughters’ CNIC cards made lest it be used as evidence in a court, declaring her a legal adult if she is ever abducted and forcibly converted.”

Naveej believed that the state’s apathy towards the plight of Hindu girls often leaves them vulnerable to social and educational inequalities.

“The lack of a CNIC card severely impacts the future prospects of the girls, barring them from accessing education and healthcare, among other basic facilities,” Naveej said.

Still, the activist remained hopeful. Through her work, she aims to rebuild the Hindu community’s trust in state institutions. She has repeatedly called on the state to support her efforts in bridging the divide that has taken root only due to the state’s negligence.

While expressing despair at the state of forced conversions, activist and organiser Najma Maheshwari said: “Today is supposed to be a day of celebration for us, but instead, we are forced to protest for our basic rights, and for our daughters to not be taken away.”

Voluntary migration also has its roots in religious discontent. Several nurses belonging to religious minorities flee the country due to workplace harassment, which Pastor Naomi Bashir urged the government to end, as well as address the severe shortage of nurses in Pakistan.

‘Apna kachra khud uthao’

There was an almost palpable distaste from the crowd when speakers addressed the synonymity of sanitary workers with religious minorities, particularly Christians and Hindus, who are often referred to as “churra” and “bhangi” (derogatory terms used for cleaners).

“We always see that job listings for sanitary work or Khakrob, exclusively ask for non-Muslims. Such actions constitute and promote systemic exclusion against religious communities, pushing them towards the margins,” Jagruti Foundation’s co-founder Sanjana Kumar told Dawn.com.

Jagruti Foundation is an initiative which aims to promote education in underserved communities.

Kumar, among many others at the march, questioned the discrimination, asking if cleanliness is “half of faith, then why does the responsibility of it fall solely on religious minorities?”

“Is that why we voted to be a part of Pakistan? So we could pick up trash?” one organiser asked as she spurred the crowd to chants of “shame, shame”.

The day’s doom and gloom was replaced by crowds dancing and swaying to a harmonium player singing Damadam Mast Qalandar as the sun broke through a cloudy sky that shielded the crowd from otherwise unbearable heat.

“Chant louder so that it reaches the place where laws are passed,” one of the organisers said as he gestured to the Sindh Assembly behind him, the first legislature to pass a resolution in favour of creating Pakistan.

“We lived here before Pakistan was formed, and we will continue to live here, because, to us, this land’s significance is equivalent to that of our mother”, Maheshwari said.

“We have been fighting all our lives, and we will continue until our last breath.”

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Header Image: A woman holds up a wooden cross outside the Sindh Assembly at the Minority Rights March held in Karachi on August 10, 2025. — Photo by Shifa

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has taken strict notice of the alleged torture and murder of a 13-year-old domestic worker in Gujranwala and sought a report from the Regional Police Officer (RPO).

Expressing heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the bereaved family, the chief minister directed authorities to arrest the suspects immediately and ensure the strictest possible legal action against them.

“Those who inflict cruelty on an innocent child deserve no leniency, and justice will be provided to the family at all costs,” Maryam Nawaz said.

The opposition has been convicted. Its leaders in both houses of Parliament have been sentenced to a decade in jail, along with over a hundred other members of their political party. They and seven other opposition parliamentarians have been removed from their elected offices. If you were to apply these words to any country on the planet, most people reading would immediately understand this to be a shameless power grab by an authoritarian status quo; the work of an insecure and dictatorial mindset that treats the will, dissent, and collective intelligence of its own people with ruthless contempt.

But I am intentionally making no such statement here. For now, I’d like to focus instead on one simple, apolitical, and logical question — what did the judgment actually say?

Even if you are not invested in law or politics, it is in your interest to keep an eye on how your judicial system treats others. Not just because that is how it could one day treat you, but because these judgments are representative of where we are as a country, to what extent our rights are enforced, and how we are viewed and treated by those in power.

The convictions in this case, no. 832/ 2023, were delivered by the Anti-Terrorism Court Faisalabad in a 71-page judgment on July 31 written in language far too long and technical to appeal to the average citizen. But I read it, so you don’t have to, and the following aims to be an objective, open-minded analysis.

The verdict

Much about the heart of this document is unravelled in its opening paragraphs. Consider the language it uses to describe how the May 9 protests began: “On the asking of leadership of PTI, the mob became furious …”. This was presented not as an allegation, but as fact. And there is more at play here than the assumption that people can develop emotions purely because someone “asked” them to (the possibility that fully grown adults might hold their own opinions didn’t even warrant consideration here).

A critical and complex legal question — to what extent can the leaders of a party be held responsible for the subsequent actions of its supporters, and how strong is the evidence for that link in this case — stood answered by the Judge before either side’s arguments were even addressed.

Further down, the evidence presented by the prosecution consists overwhelmingly of social media content, speaking of piles of screenshot printouts and USBs filled with YouTube and TikTok videos purported to be inflammatory. This point would have been much stronger if the witnesses had quoted the specific words spoken by the accused which constituted incitement to violence. In the absence of this, we are expected to trust blindly. To be fair, there is some strong evidence on the record as well, such as photographs of damages and injuries, the recovery of destroyed items, and eyewitnesses to firing, destruction of property, and violence against police officers. This establishes that property damage and violence was indeed done by some people on the ground. But it does not address the question of whether this was specifically ordered or pre-planned as part of a conspiracy. To deal with this point, enter witness 19.

The ‘witness’

He is a sub-inspector who apparently narrated a story of “instigation and abetment” committed at Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence during meetings on the 7th and 9th of May. This poses an obvious question — how did Mr Sub Inspector listen in to what was said at a high-level meeting between the former prime minister and his party leadership? In his own house? Twice?

One of the attendees of this meeting, former federal minister Hammad Azhar has claimed that the sole evidence relied upon here was that an officer was hiding under a table. And another was behind the curtains.

As ridiculous as that sounds, the story presented in the ATC’s judgment is even worse — absolutely nothing. We are explicitly told at paragraph 25 that two officers heard for themselves what was said during the Zaman Park meetings, but not a word as to how. They heard violent calls to anarchy, noted down the names of the 41 politicians in the room, and nominated all of them before the court. Simple.

The next evidence of a conspiracy presented to us is the report of “a secret meeting” that took place at the Rose Hotel in the motorway rest area of Chakri on May 4. At paragraph 24, we are told that an Inspector was informed of this meeting and told everything that was said in it by “a secret source”. Whether there could be a more flimsy and vague recount of evidence in a criminal trial is difficult to imagine.

On allegations of political victimisation

The judgment acknowledged that the people accused of hatching the conspiracy claim political victimisation; that they are being brutally harassed by the legal system from multiple directions, and that it is all to punish their party affiliation and break them into submission. It noted that they all plead not guilty.

And then it moved on to the 2023 film, ‘Money Back Guarantee’, starring Fawad Khan and Ayesha Omar. Fawad Chaudhry was busy attending the premiere, so he couldn’t have been at the conspiracy meeting. The rest of the accused apparently did not appear in court to present their defence. Whether it is more accurate to say did not or could not, I leave to you. But the priorities here appear clear.

Later in the judgment, it does finally address the claims of political victimisation. At the end of paragraph 27, it states: “If it was the case as asserted by present accused persons of abetment and conspiracy then why the all [sic] prominent leaders of PTI were not dragged for alleged conspiracy and abetment …”. One struggles to find polite words to address an argument as weak as this one. But to put it simply, if you are actively locking up 100 members of the country’s largest opposition party, it is not enough to say, “at least I’m not arresting the rest of them”. Serious claims of victimisation like those made here ought to be addressed by a court in appropriate detail, and not in a single dismissive sentence.

An ode to the Raj

From this point onwards in the judgment, law takes a backseat, and we are taken on a journey through subcontinental history and moral philosophy. In a strangely counterintuitive point to bring up, it recalls in paragraph 28 that the sections of the penal code it is currently using to lock up the opposition were inserted by Lord Macaulay, a British coloniser, to lock up his opposition. It then goes on to compare May 9 with “the famous mutiny of 1857”, using colonial language for a historical event that we ordinarily refer to as the first war of independence, and reminding us that following this, “mass violation of these laws was seldom made by the masses in their own countries …”.

One wonders why on Earth such a comparison would be inserted into a criminal law judgment, or whether its implications were truly understood. Is the ATC Faisalabad comparing PTI protestors to the brave freedom fighters of the subcontinent who revolted against their colonisers? Is it comparing itself or someone else to the British Raj? If not, what did it possibly gain, or what legal point did it strengthen by adding these thoughts?

A short and sweet paragraph 29 asserts that the fact that a huge number of events took place on May 9, in almost all major cities, “shows that these events were organised and minutely and carefully planned with well thought out strategy and intentional design”. But to assume that the existence alone of mass protest is enough to prove its meticulous planning is in defiance of both history and logic.

Did the massive and occasionally violent protests against the murder of George Floyd across all major cities of America have one mastermind meticulously planning them out? What about the uprising against Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania? Or even, to use this judgment’s own example, the first war of independence in 1857? It is of course, not outside the realm of possibility that this or any protest could have a degree of planning involved behind the scenes that is not known to the public. But if this is to be proven in a court of law, and used to lock people up, it requires clear evidence. Not half-baked conjecture.

The fault with the PTI

In paragraph 31, the judgment goes into a broad and bizarrely philosophical critique of PTI as a political party — “the culture of nihilism was intentionally promoted with solipsistic approach and the workers were made to believe that they alone are laudable and all others are condemnable”. The word salad that continues for the next several lines is too long and verbose to reproduce here, but the paragraph ends with the conclusion that this political party has by virtue of its existence and beliefs, attacked all of humanity, civilisation, and “conscious human efforts, spread on centuaries, [sic] to create some practicable and effective political system”. His Lordship seems to have exercised great restraint by choosing not to declare PTI to be the real mastermind behind the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

At this point, the question of “okay, but how is all of this relevant to a judicial order?” is so glaringly obvious that the very next paragraph seeks to address it: “Despite above discussion still the law requires sufficient proof for punishment of alleged offences and the convictions should be based on cogent and reliable evidence …”. Wonderful. On a side note, have you ever listened to a friend badmouth someone behind their back for hours on end, but they made sure to close it off with ‘but who am I to judge?’. That last line didn’t inspire a lot of confidence, did it?

Guilty by presence

Moving on to individual convictions, the judgment declares that everyone present during the allegedly conspiratorial meetings has been proved of abetment/instigation “beyond a shadow of doubt”. An Inspector adds that the presence of one gentleman, Makhdoom Zain Hussain Qureshi, could not be established at the meetings, and therefore he is acquitted.

This creates yet another bizarre legal position. Even if one were to assume that conspiracies were indeed being hatched during these meetings (for which no solid evidence has been provided), how can presence alone, in the absence of any proof of contribution to conspiracy be deemed a sufficient indicator of guilt? What if a party member attended, listened quietly, left, and went home? Does the law truly envision a 10-year prison sentence for the crime of silence? If stepping foot in the room was enough for the ATC to determine “beyond a shadow of doubt” that one is guilty of conspiracy, what about the people serving tea and biscuits at meetings like these? Should they too be locked up for a decade each?

Ultimately, through this judgment, the ATC Faisalabad has convicted 108 people and acquitted 77. The convicted maintain a right of appeal, but the Election Commission of Pakistan has been quick to disqualify all nine members of Parliament who were convicted, and their seats have been declared vacant. Vacant seats in Parliament are re-filled through by-elections. And this raises a new question — if the convictions are overturned in appeal, but a new MNA or MPA has already been elected on the vacated seat, who is to prevail?

The good news is that all of this can (and if we are to maintain any shred of hope in our justice system, should) be overturned in appeal. But much damage has already been done. This judgment is as bad at the law as it is at grammar. It makes no efforts to conceal its biases, choosing instead to flaunt them wherever it can, diving deep into explicitly political questions of who the people of Pakistan should or should not support, and doing so with an embarrassingly weak understanding of history, political theory, and the fundamental rights of free movement and association.

It is written in a style and tone that despite its inability to go two pages without a typo, assumes it knows better than you — consistently revealing a worldview that sees the people of Pakistan as easily influenced sheep, incapable of reaching their own opinions and undeserving of the freedoms inherent to a normal democracy. It treats its readers with contempt, and all but ensures that the feeling is mutual.

These are all conclusions that should matter to every Pakistani. Regardless of political beliefs or associations. Whether you like the person who was convicted or not. If a top politician can be locked up under legal reasoning that is so weak that a child could see through it, so can you. The principles at play here rise above politics and into the realm of individual liberties and the rule of law, which once chipped away, leave every single one of us more vulnerable. Yet oftentimes, developments like these are reduced to the adversarial nature of political contention, where one side must support and the other must oppose. That is flawed.

Once you read the judgment, you realise it’s not just some politicians whose future is being attacked. It’s yours.

Pakistan’s army chief accused India of continuing to fuel instability in the region and warned it was fully prepared to counter any aggression from New Delhi as tensions between the two rivals remain high following a four-day armed conflict in May.

Asim Munir, widely regarded as the most powerful figure in Pakistan, made the comments on Friday at a dinner with members of the Pakistani diaspora in Florida during his second visit to the US in less than two months.

PAKISTAN:

Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) announced that the AS and A Level results for May-June will be released in Pakistan on Tuesday, 12th August, followed by the IGCSE O Levels next week.

More than 750 schools in Pakistan reportedly offer Cambridge programmes and qualifications, and around 10,000 students attend the exams annually

Cambridge O Levels and A Levels are globally recognized qualifications awarded by Cambridge Assessment International Education.

First introduced in Pakistan in the 1940s and 1960s, respectively, and facilitated by the British Council, the exams are held twice a year, in the May–June and October–November sessions.

Students can access their results by visiting the official Cambridge International website.

 

A three-day curfew has been imposed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district with 27 areas locked down in Mamund tehsil and roads blocked for a targeted operation, authorities said on Monday.

All residents have been asked to stay indoors, with the authorities warning that curfew violations would be at the residents’ own risk, according to a notification issued by the K-P government.

The district administration said the curfew in Mamund would remain in effect from 11am on August 11 till 11am on August 14.

Earlier, according to local sources, hundreds of families left the area, seeking safety in other parts of the district and beyond.

To accommodate them, district authorities vacated 107 public schools and colleges besides setting up a camp of 450 tents at Bajaur Sports Complex.

Read: Displacement continues from Mamond amid tensions

The district administration had also ordered the removal of maize crops planted within 100 metres of the roadside.

Farmers were given a three-day ultimatum to harvest their crops, with officials citing security considerations behind the directive.

Authorities said the measures were part of precautionary steps being taken as the situation remains volatile in the region.

On Friday, a Jirga in Bajaur comprising tribal elders and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), entered the seventh round of the Bajaur Peace Jirga, which concluded without a breakthrough, as negotiations hit deadlock on a key point of contention between the two parties.

Both sides raised objections to a particular clause under discussion, resulting in a stalemate.

Speaking to the media, Peace Jirga member Sahibzada Haroonur Rasheed confirmed the deadlock and said, “Efforts are underway to resolve the impasse. The Jirga remains committed to playing its role in maintaining peace in the region”.

He urged both parties to exercise restraint and patience during the ongoing process.

“We have appealed to both sides to demonstrate tolerance. They have assured us that in the event of any conflict, civilians will not be harmed,” he added.

Attacks in Bajaur

Attacks in Bajaur have increased sharply in recent months with locals objecting to operations by security officials harming civilians. 

In February, a policeman guarding a polio vaccination team was shot dead after unidentified gunmen opened fire on him.

The attack occurred during an anti-polio campaign when unidentified assailants indiscriminately opened fire on the on-duty officer

In June, unidentified miscreants launched a rocket attack on the house of the minister of state on tribal affairs, Mubarak Zeb Khan. This was the second attack on him.

Earlier in May, alleged terrorists blew up the main gate of his house with an improvised explosive device (IED).

Last month, a bomb blast struck the Nawagai area of Bajaur, killing at least five people and injuring 16 others, according to local officials.

The explosion occurred on Nawagai road near Sadiqabad Phatak in Khar Tehsil, targeting a government vehicle.

The deceased include Assistant Commissioner Nawagai Faisal Ismail, Tehsildar Abdul Wakeel, Constable Zahid, and a passerby, Fazal Manan. Sub-Inspector Noor Hakeem, who was critically wounded in the attack, succumbed to his injuries while being transported to Peshawar for medical treatment.

After a few days, Maulana Khan Zeb, former National Assembly candidate of the Awami National Party (ANP) from Bajaur, and two others were tragically shot dead by unidentified assailants at Shindai Mor, just a few steps from the headquarters of Khar Tehsil, K-P.