National Minorities Day being observed today

National Minorities Day is being observed on Tuesday to honour the services and sacrifices rendered by religious minorities for the country.

The day is aimed to recognize the contribution and sacrifices of minorities in the creation of Pakistan and their overall role in nation-building.

It has always been the endeavour of the Government to safeguard fundamental rights, safety, security, honour, life, liberty and prosperity of minorities in line with the historic speech of the founder of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah at the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947.

The Government of Pakistan declared 11 August as National Minority Day in 2009.

To mark the day, different events, including seminars and social gatherings, are being arranged across the country by members of various religious minorities.

In a message on the day, President Dr. Arif Alvi has stressed upon the nation to maintain the spirit of tolerance, social equality and brotherhood in the society by shunning all prejudices.

He said on this day, we all reiterate that individually every Pakistani citizen will meet duties of looking after their fellow countrymen.

The President reaffirmed that all communities residing in the country will be treated and respected equally so that the country can further march on the path of progress and development.

He said the day has great significance in the history of Pakistan as the whole nation reaffirmed its commitment with the promise made by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah on August 11, 1947 in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to safeguarding the rights of minorities.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz says the minority community has been playing an important role in progress and development of the country.

Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Shehryar Khan Afridi has said that the way Pakistan has set a model of equal treatment to its minorities and the world needs to learn from it.

Addressing the participants of a seminar held here at Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services (PIPS) with regard to the World Minorities Day, Shehryar Afridi said that the sole objective to observe this day is to make the whole world realise the significance of the rights of minorities. Afridi said that the Indian government has unleashed a reign of terror against Indian minorities and Muslims are specifically are being lynched under a vicious plan of genocide.

Afridi said that in February this year, 36 Muslims were butchered some even burned to death by the hindu mobsters in India’s capital Delhi while scores of mosques were also razed to ground.

He said that the Indian atrocities being meted out to the minorities in general and Kashmiris in particular must be given an end.

It’s not only about Muslims. Dalits and Christians are also being exterminated systematically. Indian bureaucrats and politicians publicly kill Muslims but they also promote Muslim lynching on social and electronic media. Minorities are being killed under a plan, ” argued Afridi.

He said World War-I and World War-II erupted due to failure of nations to provide justice to the oppressed. Chairman of Kashmir Committee warned that if the United Nations and the prosperous world fail to stop systematic bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiris in India, Kashmir may become a nuclear flash point which may have impact beyond the region