Hindu family in Pakistan tortured, held hostage for fetching drinking water from mosque

The police did not register a case as the attackers were related to a local Parliamentarian of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, farmer Alam Ram Bheel said.

Fetching drinking water from a mosque in Pakistan’s Punjab province landed a family of poor farmers from the minority Hindu community in trouble as some people tortured and held them hostage for “violating the sanctity” of their place of worship, a media report said on Monday.

Alam Ram Bheel, a resident of Punjab’s Rahimyar Khan city, was picking raw cotton along with his other family members, including his wife, in a field.

Mr. Bheel said when the family went outside a nearby mosque to fetch drinking water from a tap, some local landlords beat them up, the Dawn newspaper reported.