Now, dedicated column for Sikhs in Pakistan census

GS Paul

Amritsar, December 13

After 75 years of the Partition, Sikhs in Pakistan will finally have a separate identity for the first time. Complying with the directions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has included a column “Sikhs” in the population census forms published in Urdu.

Protest over locking of Bhai Taru Singh Gurdwara

• Sikhs of Delhi on Tuesday protested near the Pakistan Embassy against the forcible locking of Gurdwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh at Naulakha in Lahore city under the guise of a land dispute
• On Monday, Sikh leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa of the BJP, urged External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to immediately take up matter of illegal locking of the gurdwara with his Pakistani counterpart

In the absence of this specific slot, the Sikhs were being counted under the ‘other religions’ column. Consequently, the exact picture of Sikh population in Pakistan was not clear. The tentative figures were depriving them of their fundamental rights and adequate representation in the political sphere.

It was a five-year long legal battle initiated by five Sikhs from Peshawar that has yielded this result. In March 2017, a petition was filed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-based Sikh representatives at the Peshawar High Court. Though the orders were passed in their favour, they were not being implemented.