Peshawar: The Khyber Government of Pakistan said on Tuesday that a criminal case against 350 people accused of burning a temple last year will be withdrawn, claiming that the Hindu minority community has forgiven them.
According to the source of the interior department of this province, a member of the Hindu community decided to forgive the defendant in a jirga formed by the government to resolve this problem.
Jirga is a traditional assembly of the elders to make a decision with consensus.
They said that the government had formed a jirga which peacefully resolved all the problems that created riots between local Muslim and Hindu communities in the area.
However, Hindus stated that despite the guarantee by the government, the construction of a vacation area adjacent to the temple does not need to be postponed, creating riots between the minority community.
Haroon Sarabiyal, a Hindu-Minority Religious scholar and human rights activist, said: “We do not oppose the harmony of peace and interfaith but the methods adopted for withdrawal of cases that are quite opposed by jirga culture”.
He complained that the local Hindu community was not yet necessary except for Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insea members from the National Assembly and the Chairman of the Hindu Council of Pakistan Dr.
Ramesh K Vankwani.
Sources said that the provincial interior department had also written an official letter to the anti-terrorist court, told them about the jirga decision.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government said that 350 was accused of being fired because of their alleged involvement in defining Samadhi Prem Hans fires and the adjacent temple in Teri Karak District last year.
A total of 109 people involved in the attack were arrested while 92 police officers, including police supervisors and police deputy supervisors who served at the time, were suspended.
The Supreme Court has taken Suo Moto notices about this case and directed the provincial government to reconstruct Samadhi and the temple.
Local Hindu community members in the Teri Karak district said that a house adjacent to the temple was bought by Hindus for worshipers to visit temples from distant areas to rest.
The move gave the wrong message to the local community that was afraid that Hindus wanted to live there.
Therefore, the local masses first burned the house less construction and then attacked the adjacent temple and burned Samadhi.
Samadhi Shri Paramhans Ji Maharaj is considered sacred by the Hindu community.
It was built where he died in 1919 in Teri Karak Village.
Hindus forms the largest minority community in Pakistan.
According to official estimates, 75 Hindu Lakh lived in Pakistan.
However, according to the community, more than 90 Hindu lakh lived in this country.
The majority of Pakistani Hindu residents settled in the Sindh Province where they shared culture, tradition and language with Muslim residents.
They often complain of harassment by extremists.