The latest killing of a Hindu farmer in Sindh once again exposed the extreme vulnerability of religious minorities in Pakistan. The victim, a young tenant farmer from the Kolhi community, was shot dead in broad daylight following a dispute with a powerful local landlord over land use. The incident triggered protests across Sindh, with Hindu communities blocking highways and demanding justice.
The case was not merely about one killing; it symbolized a deeper pattern of impunity, feudal power, and religious marginalization that has defined the lived reality of Hindus in Pakistan over the past several decades. For many minorities, particularly Hindus, Pakistan has increasingly become a hostile space marked by false allegations, forced conversions, kidnappings, economic coercion, and targeted violence.
In 2025, the most important shift was not that Pakistan suddenly “invented” anti-minority violence, but that the enabling ecosystem around it became harder to deny, as it was an organized misuse of laws, routine impunity, and the normalization of vigilante enforcement. Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission reported in January 2025 that organized groups had targeted over 450 people with false blasphemy accusations, describing it as a calculated, profit-driven abuse of the law.
That matters for Hindus as much as other minorities because blasphemy allegations in Pakistan are a multiplier. The Islamabad High Court’s July 2025 order directing the federal government to create a commission to investigate misuse of the blasphemy law underscored how institutional this problem has become, even if enforcement and follow-through remain contested.
Independent rights reporting in 2025 also sharpened the link between “religious offence” narratives and material dispossession. Human Rights Watch documented how Pakistan’s blasphemy framework is exploited for blackmail and profit, including as a tool to force religious minorities out and make their land vulnerable.
This mechanism is especially relevant for Hindu minorities concentrated in parts of Sindh and southern Punjab, where disputes over tenancy, bonded labor, and local power hierarchies often overlap with identity. An accusation can destroy livelihoods, displace families of Hindu minorities from villages, and make returning almost impossible.
At the international level, UN human rights experts warned last year about widespread impunity for violence and discrimination against religious minorities in Pakistan, pointing to reports of killings, arbitrary arrests, and attacks on places of worship and cemeteries.
Pakistani reporting on mob violence linked to extremist religious mobilization reinforces the point that majoritarian Islamist pressure and street power can turn lethal quickly, and that the state’s uneven response helps cement a cycle of fear.
In such a dangerous environment, the Hindu minority in Pakistan is facing increasing chances of targeted attacks from Islamist fringe elements like radical cleric Mian Mitthu in Sindh or supporters of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), who are known to weaponize forced religious conversions, abductions, and claim minority properties through fake blasphemy allegations or spreading fake rumors to mobilize the crowd.
Sindh, home to the majority of the country’s Hindu population, has seen repeated outbreaks of communal violence triggered by blasphemy accusations. These incidents follow a familiar pattern: an allegation surfaces, religious leaders mobilize crowds, violence erupts, and the affected Hindu community is forced into hiding or displacement.
Punjab has witnessed similar episodes, despite its much smaller Hindu population. A Lahore-based study cited by the Centre for Social Justice found that at least 421 minority women and girls were subjected to forced conversions between 2021 and 2024 – 71% of them underage, predominantly from Hindu and Christian communities. These incidents demonstrate that communal violence against Hindus is not geographically isolated but embedded in a broader national culture of intolerance that allows mobs to dictate justice.
Beyond physical violence, systemic persecution has played an equally destructive role in shrinking Hindu civic space. Year after year, reports document underage Hindu girls being abducted, coerced into converting to Islam, and married to Muslim men. Families who attempt legal remedies face death threats, delayed hearings, and court rulings that overwhelmingly favor the alleged converters.
Despite public debate and legislative attempts, no effective national law criminalizing forced conversions has been enacted, and no meaningful judicial precedent exists in favor of Hindu families. This legal vacuum has emboldened perpetrators and created a climate of fear among Hindu parents.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have further institutionalized minority vulnerability. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has estimated that around 1,000 non-Muslim girls, mostly Hindu and Christian, are forcibly converted to Islam each year in Pakistan. It implies an average monthly rate of roughly 20 or more abducted and converted girls from religious minority communities, including Hindus, although precise verification is difficult due to gaps in official data and underreporting.
The political context has further aggravated this environment. Under the current military leadership of Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, Pakistan has witnessed a visible reassertion of religious nationalism within state narratives. Munir’s public emphasis on the ideological separation between Muslims and Hindus has been widely interpreted as legitimizing exclusionary views.
This ideological framing has created greater space for radical Islamist groups, who increasingly feel empowered to act against minorities. It is a fact that the Pakistan military establishment’s tolerance of hardline Islamic rhetoric has had tangible consequences on the ground.
As a result, many Hindus increasingly view migration as their only viable survival strategy. Over the past decade, thousands of Hindu families have sought refuge in India, citing insecurity, discrimination, and lack of legal protection. Reports citing civil-society estimates indicate that around 500,000 Pakistani Hindus reside in India, many of whom migrated over the decades to escape threats like forced conversions, kidnappings, and discrimination. Those who remain in Pakistan often live cautiously, avoiding public visibility, religious expression, or political engagement.
The killing of the Hindu farmer in Sindh thus fits into a grim continuum rather than standing as an isolated incident. It reflects how intersecting forces, feudal dominance, Islamic religious extremism, weak rule of law, and ideological exclusion, have converged to make Hindus one of Pakistan’s most vulnerable communities.
With limited state support and growing tolerance of radical Islamist outfits, for Pakistan’s Hindu minority, the question is no longer about equality, but about survival in a system that has repeatedly failed to protect them.
Comment