| The News Minute | March 6, 2015 | 6:50 P.M. IST |
Members of a Pakistani student group, the National Student’s Federation, formed a human shield around Hindus celebrating Holi at the Swami Narayan Temple in Karachi.
According to a report in Huffington Post India, the NSF formed a symbolic protective shield around those celebrating the festival with the intention of showing solidarity with the religious minority in their country.
The National Student’s Federation (NSF) organised the formation of a human shield at the Holi celebrations at... http://t.co/eXX0hJJxJ8
— NSF Pakistan (@NsfPak) March 5, 2015Hindus are a minority in Pakistan and constitute only close to 2 percent of the population of the country. In the past couple of years, Hindus have raised issues of desecration of temples and forcible conversions and several also fled to India in 2012 demanding refugee status.
This move by the NSF though, was their way of advocating peace and inter-faith co-existence.
Image Courtesy: NSF Facebook page
“When we showed solidarity with Shias at the Imambargah, Dr. Jaipaal Chhabria joined us and stood alongside us so it’s only fair that as a group, we extend the same courtesy to all Hindus in Pakistan who face a lot of prosecution of different kinds," said Fawwad Hasan, General Secretary Karachi of the NSF.