Chandigarh: A former Hindu legislator from Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has sought asylum in India, claiming that minorities were being deprived of their rights in the neighbouring nation.
Baldev Kumar (43), along with his wife and two children came to India last month and is presently staying at Khanna in Punjab’s Ludhiana district.
“I have come here to seek asylum and will request (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi Sahib to help us,” Baldev Kumar told reporters Tuesday in Khanna.
When asked why he Pakistan and came to India, the former lawmaker said that, ‘the whole world is watching what is the situation in Pakistan now’. “We were expecting from (Pakistan PM Imran) Khan Sahib that when he came (to power), the fate of Pakistan will change. But Imran Khan has failed to bring about any change,” asserted Baldev Kumar.
“You are watching the situation (in Pakistan) and I am also watching the same. That day our Sikh girl was kidnapped. Such things should not take place,” Kumar added.
Notably, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, a teenage Sikh girl, the daughter of granthi (priest) of a Gurdwara there, was abducted and converted to Islam at gunpoint before she was married to a Muslim man, her family had alleged.
A video of the girl’s family had gone viral on social media in which one of her family members had alleged that a group of men attacked their house and the girl was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam.
Baldev Kumar said: “Had minorities been getting rights in Pakistan, such situation should not have arisen.” He further said he has also requested his other family members to leave Pakistan.
Kumar said that there were several families in Sindh and Nankana Sahib who have told him that if he got asylum there (India), then they would also try to leave Pakistan. Baldev Kumar was a former Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) from Barikot seat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan.
PTI