Mohajirs continue to face persecution by the Pakistan government and, therefore, live battered lives in the land they chose after partition, said panellists at an event organised over the weekend by the group seeking justice for Pakistan’s Mohajirs.
Speakers included well-known social experts like European Parliament’s Vice President Ryszard Czarnecki, executive director of the European Mohajir Network Mohammed Khan and human rights activist from Karachi Asif Mohammed, the group said in a press statement here.
Among other issues, the experts focussed on the “outsider/foreigner” status of Mohajirs in Pakistan; <g data-gr-id="27">their</g> being target of planned genocide attacks in 1965; Pakistan’s double-standards on civil rights; and the 1965 ethnic riots.
The Mohajirs, being ethnically distinct from the Punjab minority, live in parts of Sindh, Punjab and the North West Frontier Province. The Pakistani census <g data-gr-id="21">claim</g> that 7.2 million Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan after the Partition.
The panellists said that in the last few months hundreds of lives have been lost on the streets of Karachi as targeted killing increased. They accused the Pakistani government of not paying any heed to the plight of Mohajirs during the riots of 1985 and 2011, which claimed thousands of lives.
Riots broke out in the country in 1985 when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) called for equal rights and identity and in 2011 over 900 were killed in Karachi itself following ethnic and political tensions.
Earlier, the riots of 1965 claimed hundreds of innocent lives when Mohajirs called for equal status in Pakistani society, experts said.