Pakistan probes Hindu temple’s desecration as India protests

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s overseas ministry on Friday stated authorities had been making an attempt to hint and arrest suspects who this week desecrated a Hindu temple positioned at a house within the nation’s port metropolis of Karachi, drawing condemnation from India.

In a press release, the ministry stated that an investigation was nonetheless underway, and that those that attacked the temple on Wednesday earlier than fleeing the scene “won’t escape justice and the federal government will take care of them with the complete pressure of legislation.”

The assertion got here a day after New Delhi condemned the incident. Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson at India’s Exterior Affairs Ministry, expressed concern on Thursday over the vandalization of the temple, saying it was “one other act within the systematic persecution of non secular minorities” in Pakistan.

Nevertheless, Pakistan’s overseas ministry rejected Bagchi’s allegation of systematic persecution, as a substitute saying such violence was happening in opposition to minority Muslims in India.

Anger has been rising in Pakistan in opposition to India since final week when two spokespeople for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion made feedback seen as insulting to Islam’s prophet and his spouse Aisha. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s occasion suspended one official and expelled the opposite, saying it rejects the insulting of non secular figures.

On Friday, greater than 10,000 supporters of the Islamic radical Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan occasion rallied within the japanese metropolis of Lahore, condemning New Delhi for what the protesters stated was its failure to take motion in opposition to the 2 politicians who used blasphemous remarks in opposition to Islam’s prophet.

The occasion’s younger chief, Saad Rizvi, addressed the group in Lahore. The occasion gained prominence in Pakistan’s 2018 elections, campaigning on the one subject of defending the nation’s controversial blasphemy legislation, which requires the dying penalty for anybody who insults Islam.

The same rally, attended by greater than 2,000 Islamists, was additionally held in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province.

Pakistan and India have a historical past of bitter relations. Since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947, the nuclear-armed nations have fought two of their three wars over the disputed Himalayan area of Kashmir, break up between them however claimed by each in its entirety.