A detailed view of the plight of Pakistani Christian community in Punjab. How they are being treated as second class citizens with no rights. Also provides an interesting perspective on how the Sikhs and Hindus would have been treated if they had chosen to remain in West Punjab during Partition.

Excerpt:

The lands vacated by the Sikhs were being allotted to Muslim refugees coming from eastern Punjab and these new owners of land either did not want Christian saipis and atharis due to religious reasons or they did not know them well enough to trust them with such jobs. “They hired us for a while but then they engaged their coreligionists,” says Nazir Masih, who was about 13 years old at the time of partition and was living in Harichand village in Sheikhupura district.

In some cases, Christians were forcefully evicted even from places where they were tilling lands for the state institutions – such as in a few villages set up on the military farms. “Christians are being evicted from some of the villages reserved for them,” Singh said. “They are being replaced with [Muslim] refugees.”

Singha argued that Christians in Pakistan deserved protection from the government because they “have taken refuge in this House of Islam”. When no one listened to him, he suggested to the government to either place the homeless Christians in refugee camps or “bury them alive”.

Link: https://thewire.in/73625/pakistan-punjabi-christians/