Federal Minister for Religious & Minority Affairs Ijaz ul Haq said here on Tuesday that government had constituted district committees to look after the interfaith issues and control the law and order situation arising in the name of religion. The committees will comprise DCO's, DPO's, Nazim's including Ulema and minority members.
The Minister was addressing a meeting of National Commission on Minorities held on Tuesday. Among others attending the meeting were Minister of State Mushtaq Victor, Secretary Minorities Jamil-ud-Din, Bishop of Lahore and Moderator of Church of Pakistan Rt Rev Dr Alexander John Malik, MNA Akram Gill, and MPA Dr Ramesh Kumar.
The Minister said that incidents at Sangla hill, Shanti Nagar and Sukkur have brought bad name to the country scaring non-Muslims. There are 106 districts all together in Pakistan and committees have been formed in 36 districts so far, he said.
The minorities were asked to inform the administration about any of their upcoming religious events, as was done in the case of Muharram, so that special security measures were taken by the administration.
The meeting was told that for developing inter-faith harmony, the government was considering adding special text in the syllabus. The Minister said that Church leaders should also come forward with suggestions for creating an atmosphere of harmony.
The meeting noted that sometimes NGOs ignite the situation unintentionally by overt reaction, which mostly was out of proportion to the sensitivity of the situation.
Responding to a question raised by MNA Akram Gill, the Minister said that committees would be proactive and would be given enough powers to resolve the matters amicably and to prevent their recurrence. They would hold quarterly meetings regularly, he added.
MPA Dr Ramesh Kumar from Sindh complained that he was not informed about the committees and objected as to why there was just one in Sindh.
The Minister said that committees were under process of formation due to some problems in Sindh, as the situation was brought to normal, there would be one committee in each district, he said.
The minorities' members were of the opinion that approval of district committee members should be sought from minority leaders. Answering another question, the Minister assured that those meetings would be on regular basis to address the minorities' issues, he added. The main issue, which was widely discussed by the minorities, was to change the blasphemy law.
Speaking on the subject, Bishop of Lahore and Moderator of Church of Pakistan Rt Rev Dr Alexander John Malik said that blasphemy law was being misused grossly. Many innocents had become its victims.
He said if the capital punishment was replaced with long imprisonment, the situation would ease. He also advocated change in Hudood Ordinance, which was affecting the minorities who easily fall prey. The Bishop further claimed that they should be treated like all Pakistanis and that they were as patriotic as were any other Pakistani.
There was consensus to ban the movie Da Vinci Code in Pakistan that had already been banned in Sri Lanka. The Minister agreed and assured for necessary action.
The minorities also asked the Minister to stop certain TV programmes, which were against the sentiments of minorities and not against other religions while propagating Islam. The Minister said that he would notify that to Pemra, which controlled TV channels.
The meeting decided to raise scholarships for minority students. Now, these range from Rs 200 for primary level to Rs 2500 for professional education. Other issues like sale of property under church and introducing of Inter-faith Harmony Award were also discussed in the meeting.
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