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Shehbaz Sharif Diwali Greetings Backfires: Have you ever seen that a leader wishes you on a festival and this becomes a noose around his neck? But, this is exactly what happened when Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif extended greetings on the occasion of Diwali. Sharif described Diwali as the victory of light over darkness and good over evil on social media platform X. As soon as Sharif posted the congratulatory message on Instagram, there was a flood of reactions on social media from both Pakistan and India. Users started trolling Sharif. Someone counted the figures, someone taunted and someone showed Sharif the mirror of truth. Earlier there were 15 percent Hindus in Pakistan The anger over Sharif's Diwali wishes has been seen due to the ill-treatment of Hindus in Pakistan. In 2023, out of the total population of Pakistan of 240,458,089 (more than 24 crores), there are only 38 lakh Hindus, while the figures show that they constitute 1.63 percent of the Pakistani population. It was not always like this. Pakistan was home to a thriving population of Hindus since the time of the Indus Valley Civilization more than 3,000 years ago. The two major cities of this civilization, Harappa and Mohenjodaro, were located in the Punjab and Sindh provinces of present-day Pakistan. After partition in 1947, the number of Hindus has declined from 15 percent to around 2 percent now. The decline has been even greater in major cities with historically large Hindu populations. For example, in Lahore the population of Hindu/Sikh community was about 40 percent in 1941 but today it is less than one percent. Are there any Hindus left in Pakistan? A user on social media accused Pakistan PM Shahbaz Sharif of discriminating against Hindus. The user took a dig at Sharif's long message and wrote, it is good to see such a long message, but the words seem empty. One user commented, you talk about light over darkness, but under your system Hindus in Pakistan are even more in darkness. Forced conversions, attacks on temples and kidnappings continue. Another commented and said are there any Hindus left in Pakistan? Another wrote that WhatsApp the Hindus of Pakistan directly, there is hardly anyone left there. Hindu women are kidnapped This decline in the number of Hindus in Pakistan is due to many reasons, the most prominent of which is the legal and social discrimination faced by them in the country. Legally, only Muslims are eligible for the post of President or Prime Minister of Pakistan. Additionally, the blasphemy law carries the death penalty and has been used to target non-Muslims in Pakistan. Furthermore, family laws do not exist for non-Muslims. Every year thousands of Hindu women are kidnapped and converted to Islam. temples were destroyed According to the Global Slavery Index estimates in 2020, more than 3 million Pakistanis are in debt, The New York Times reported. Many activists say that landlords trap poor Hindus in this way by giving them loans that they know can never be repaid. Then they and their families have to work to repay the loans. Women are often sexually exploited. The plight of Hindus in Pakistan does not end here. Hindu temples have also been reduced to debris. Today, less than 300 Hindu temples remain in Pakistan. Thousands of temples have been destroyed since partition. What do the figures say? In July 2023, the Mari Mata Temple located in Soldier Bazaar, Karachi was demolished. The reasoning behind this was that the structure of the temple built about 150 years ago had become old and dangerous. According to data available with the Indian government, 241 cases of violence against Hindus were recorded in Pakistan in 2022, which declined to 103 in 2023 but increased slightly to 112 in 2024. Hindu in Pakistan Munir's hateful words It is also worth noting that Hindus congratulate PM Sharif but his army chief Asim Munir has different views. Days before the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam in April, Munir had asked his countrymen to tell their children that they should not forget that they are "different from Hindus". Munir had said, "You have to tell the story of Pakistan to your children so that they do not forget that our ancestors considered us different from Hindus in every aspect of life." Munir had also said “Our religions are different, our customs are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different.