Pakistan minorities vulnerable to extremists

It's been a tough month for religious minorities in Pakistan. A Christian was gunned down because he rented in a Muslim neighborhood in northwest Peshawar, not far from the border with Afghanistan.

Another Christian, this one a pastor, his wife and 12-year-old son were beaten by their Muslim neighbors in eastern Punjab and told to leave their village.

An opposition politician was charged with blasphemy after declaring all religions were equal and a senior political figure, allied with the government and backed by Islamic extremists, stopped the construction of a Hindu temple in the capital of Islamabad.

Analysts and activists warn of worse times ahead as Prime Minister Imran Khan vacillates between trying to forge a pluralistic nation and his conservative Islamic beliefs.

Fear haunts the family of Nadeem Jordan, the Christian man who was shot and killed because he rented in a Muslim neighborhood in Peshawar.

Investigators say the gunmen have fled but also say they stalk Nadeem’s family, threatening his brother-in-law.

The police have registered a case, but the gunmen are free. Police say they have fled yet they stalk Nadeem's family, threatening his brother-in-law.

"They say 'we will teach you a lesson'," said Nadeem's mother-in-law Elizabeth Lal, who was shot in the arm during the attack in early June.

Her left arm is shattered. The bullet is still lodged within.

In the case of the Hindu temple, fatwas or religious instructions were issued saying non-Muslims could not build new temples or churches in Islamic Pakistan.

Lal Malhi, a Hindu minority Parliamentarian with Imran Khan's Pakistan Insaf (Justice) party, said abuse is not a new issue for religious minorities in the country.

"We have to be able to deal it with these things because we are Pakistanis," he said.

Analysts blame the uptick in attacks on a well-intentioned Khan, who champions a vision of a tolerant Pakistan where its religious minorities thrive as equals among an overwhelming Muslim majority, while at the same time ceding power to extreme Islamic clerics, bowing to their demands and turning to them for the final say, even on matters of state.

Khan's list of concessions to the radical religious are lengthy.

When the coronavirus first emerged as a threat, Khan refused to shut down a gathering of tens of thousands of Islamic missionaries from across the globe. It wasn’t until they had reached Pakistan that he ordered it canceled.

Khan isn't the first Pakistani politician to walk a religious tightrope in Pakistan.

Successive military and democratically elected governments have buckled to the pressure of Islamic extremists, who critics say have the ability to bring impassioned mobs on to the street.

"It's the fear of the establishment as to what they can do. They can cause mayhem across Pakistan," says human rights activist Tahira Abdullah, who has courted the wrath of extremists championing the country's minorities, marching for their rights and women's rights.

Khan, like governments before him, has tried to present a "soft" image of Pakistan as a country that protects its minorities.

Khan even opened a visa free access for Sikhs from enemy India to visit one of their holiest of sites in Pakistan.

But analysts say the initiatives have been mostly symbolic.