Islamabad/Amritsar: Unknown gunmen shot dead a Unani doctor Sikh Community in Northwest City of Pakistan Peshawar Panic spread among the small minority community in the provincial capital on Thursday Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Sikhs demanded that Pakistan The government ensures their safety and checks the elements targeting them.
According to the police, the attackers escaped after firing four bullets at Hakim Satnam Singh’s clinic Dharmendra dispensary on Charsadda Road in Peshawar. Singh was taken to the nearby Lady Reading Hospital in critical condition, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Locals said Hakim had returned to Peshawar from Hassan Abdal a day earlier, where Gurdwara Punja Sahib, one of the famous holy sites of Sikhism, is located.
Police said a case has been registered against the unidentified assailants and investigation is on.
Radesh Singh, a Sikh social worker Tony, told TOI over phone from Pakistan that the family members of Satnam belonged to the Tira tribal community in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Orakzai Agency. The members of the community had relatives in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and often visited there.
Only 520 Sikh families live in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Most of them had migrated to the city from the tribal areas of Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber to escape militancy. The gradual movement of these families from tribal areas began in the mid-1980s, which increased significantly in 2007 with the rise of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organization of several Pakistani terror outfits. The demand for jizya (protection money from minorities) and several socio-religious restrictions by the TTP had forced Sikh families to leave their ancestral homes for a new residence.
Tony said that after the attacks on Sikhs, Satnam Singh shifted to Peshawar with his family, not knowing that he would be a victim of hate-mongers here too. “The Sikh community has appealed to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to ensure their safety,” he said.
Pakistan has been described by rights groups as an unsafe country for minorities. There have been more than a dozen killings of Sikhs in the last few years. Among the victims was Dr Swaran Singh, advisor to KPK chief Pervez Khan Khattak, who was shot dead on April 22, 2016.
“We fear that with the Taliban in power in neighboring Afghanistan, targeted killings of members of the Sikh community may increase because they were previously targeting Sikhs in Afghanistan,” Tony said.
According to the police, the attackers escaped after firing four bullets at Hakim Satnam Singh’s clinic Dharmendra dispensary on Charsadda Road in Peshawar. Singh was taken to the nearby Lady Reading Hospital in critical condition, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Locals said Hakim had returned to Peshawar from Hassan Abdal a day earlier, where Gurdwara Punja Sahib, one of the famous holy sites of Sikhism, is located.
Police said a case has been registered against the unidentified assailants and investigation is on.
Radesh Singh, a Sikh social worker Tony, told TOI over phone from Pakistan that the family members of Satnam belonged to the Tira tribal community in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Orakzai Agency. The members of the community had relatives in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and often visited there.
Only 520 Sikh families live in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Most of them had migrated to the city from the tribal areas of Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber to escape militancy. The gradual movement of these families from tribal areas began in the mid-1980s, which increased significantly in 2007 with the rise of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organization of several Pakistani terror outfits. The demand for jizya (protection money from minorities) and several socio-religious restrictions by the TTP had forced Sikh families to leave their ancestral homes for a new residence.
Tony said that after the attacks on Sikhs, Satnam Singh shifted to Peshawar with his family, not knowing that he would be a victim of hate-mongers here too. “The Sikh community has appealed to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to ensure their safety,” he said.
Pakistan has been described by rights groups as an unsafe country for minorities. There have been more than a dozen killings of Sikhs in the last few years. Among the victims was Dr Swaran Singh, advisor to KPK chief Pervez Khan Khattak, who was shot dead on April 22, 2016.
“We fear that with the Taliban in power in neighboring Afghanistan, targeted killings of members of the Sikh community may increase because they were previously targeting Sikhs in Afghanistan,” Tony said.
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