Representatives from various media organisations at a meeting on minorities' rights have called for effective legislation related to marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption rights to non-Muslims community. They also emphasised to expedite on the Minority Property Protection Bill (MPPB), in order to remove sense of deprivation as citizens of the country.
The consultation and sharing meeting with the media persons, titled: "Religious Freedom and Minority Rights" organized by South Asia Partnership of Pakistan (SAP-Pk) held here at a local hotel on Wednesday. Those spoke on the occasion were included Nusrat Ara, Regional Programme Co-ordinator, Shamim Shahid, a Senior journalist Rahmatullah Khan and others highlighted issues being faced by minorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
Enumerating ordeals to minorities, they said that due to non-availability of the rule and regulations related to birth, death and marriage certificates for minorities, the non-Muslim community were facing a lot of problems. They added that the non-Muslims community were being faced numerous difficulties in provision of Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) facility, as they have been living in tribal region for their forefathers but they are dealt as migrated non-Muslims," they lamented.
They said the present 3 percent quota was not enough to fulfil the need of the minorities as their children were also getting education like Muslims but due to less quota for them, their children often deprive of taking admission in Colleges and Universities and job as well. The participants demanded for reviewing education policy, hatred materials and syllabus be immediately taken out adding that if any government's facility is funded through Zakat (Alms) in head of health and vocational trainings for Muslims, provision for alternate source for non-Muslims be made available to these institutions so that descendent of the minorities could feel free atmosphere in getting education, jobs, and others. They continued that quota for the minorities in jobs, educational institutions and various schemes of the government are increased in proportion to the population of the non-Muslims in province and effectively implemented.