Pakistan's Supreme Court has lashed out at the Imran Khan government and asked "why 30,000 jobs allocated for minorities are vacant" in the country.
Enquiring about job quota for the minorities, during the hearing of a suo motu case on the attack on Rahim Yar Khan's Bhong temple, the top court got to know that there are just five per cent quota for them in the country, Samaa Tv reported.
"Nearly 30,000 jobs allocated for minorities are vacant. Why?" Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed asked at a hearing Tuesday in Karachi.
Responding to court, Shoaib Suddle, the chairman of the Minority Commission said that Pakistan has set a 5 per cent job quota for minorities. "It doesn't specify whether Hindus, Sikhs, or Christians should be hired," he said.
According to Samaa Tv, the chief justice summoned a report on government jobs for minorities and instructed the federal government and chief secretaries to cooperate with the commission.
The court remarked that the Bhong temple has been completely renovated.
"We recently found out that people in Bhong are fighting over a water tap," the chief justice pointed out. Why are people attacking each other for water? We need to bring moral reforms in society," he said.
Last month, a mob had attacked the Hindu temple in Rahim Yar Khan district. Pakistani lawmaker and Hindu community leader Ramesh Kumar Vankwani shared videos of the incident. In one of the videos, the mob can be seen destroying the infrastructure of the temple.
In recent years, there has been a surge in attacks on the place of worship of religious minorities in Pakistan. The country has been repeatedly slammed by the international community for not safeguarding the interest of its minorities.
Last year in December, a mob of over a hundred people led by local Muslim clerics had destroyed and set on fire the temple in the Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A video clip that went viral on social media showed a violent mob destroying the walls and roof of the temple.
Pakistan has been discriminating against its religious minorities, which is manifested in various forms of targeted violence, mass murders, extrajudicial killings, abduction, rapes and forced conversion to Islam, making the Pakistani Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadiyyas and Shias one of the most persecuted minorities in the region.
( With inputs from ANI )
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