In a heartbreaking scene outside the Hyderabad Press Club, the mother of Chanda Maharaj—a minor Hindu girl abducted and handed over to her kidnapper by court order—is demanding her daughter’s safe return. For two years, Chanda’s mother has fought for justice while her daughter remains missing, last seen with Shaman Magsi, a man implicated in her abduction, yet inexplicably granted custody over her by the court. Despite repeated appeals, the mother’s pleas have been met with silence from the authorities, underscoring the terrifying reality faced by Pakistan’s Hindu minority.

Chanda Maharaj’s case is emblematic of the injustices inflicted on Pakistan’s minority communities, particularly Hindus, whose young girls are abducted, raped, forcibly converted, and subjected to marriages under duress. Even institutions, including the courts and law enforcement, appear complicit in perpetuating the abuse rather than providing protection. The court’s decision to hand Chanda over to her kidnapper reflects a system that seems indifferent to the suffering of minorities, often subjecting them to legal structures that effectively sanction their persecution.

In yet another heinous act of violence, Punjabi Pak Army fired mortar shells into the Shaktoi village in Upper Waziristan’s tehsil Sharkai at 11 a.m. on 9 Nov, killing two innocent children and injuring another. This latest atrocity follows a disturbing pattern of targeted attacks on civilians by the Pakistan Army, reminiscent of the recent shelling in Khyber Terah just a day earlier.

The mortar fire is deliberately aimed at the civilian population. The repeated targeting of children and livestock, raises serious questions about the intentions behind these brutal assaults. In stark contrast, the shells never seem to hit the terrorists or Pakistan Army personnel, this shows that these attacks are truly meant to instill fear among the already suffering civilian populace.

The Pakistan Army’s reckless shelling of civilian areas has become a grotesque tactic aimed at intimidating and displacing the local population. This marks yet another chapter in the long history of the military’s violent oppression in regions like Waziristan, where Pak Army have long been perpetrating atrocities to silence Pashtuns and to facilitate their mass eviction and seize control of the mineral-rich lands predominantly owned by Pashtuns.

On November 7, a tragic incident unfolded in the Tirah Valley of Khyber district, where a mortar shell struck a group of children returning home from school, killing one young student and leaving five others seriously injured. This incident has deepened concerns over the Punjabi Pak Army’s attempts to obstruct the return of the displaced Kukikhel Pashtun community, who have been fighting for years to reclaim their homeland after being forced out in 2013 due to military operations.

The Pak Army has been actively discouraging Kukikhel internally displaced Pashtuns (IDPs) from returning to their homes. When local leader Malik Naseer Koki Khel and the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) advocated for the Kukikhel community’s right to return, the Army initially resisted, only relenting after sustained pressure. Now, however, the Army is using intimidation tactics to scare the people back into displacement.

For weeks, the Kukikhel have reported instances of Punjabi Pak Army-backed intimidation, with local homes coming under sporadic fire, and recent events escalating into the fatal mortar attack on schoolchildren. These actions are deliberate tactics designed to instill fear and disrupt the resettlement process, undermining their hard-won right to return. Despite a formal agreement reached in the October 11 jirga allowing Kukikhel Pashtuns to come back, the Army continues to throw obstacles in their path, resorting to various forms of harassment to deter their return.

Pak Army’s Mortar Shelling Strategy

This brutal crackdown on the Kukikhel community highlights a much larger issue faced by displaced Pashtuns across the region. Since their forced displacement in 2013, the Kukikhel people, like many other Pashtun IDPs, have fought tirelessly to return to their ancestral homes. The plight of these displaced communities is a direct result of Pakistan’s flawed policies, which have seen Pashtuns used as pawns in military operations under the guise of counterterrorism. The military’s interference in their resettlement only deepens the humanitarian crisis that continues to unfold in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Kukikhel Pashtuns’ forced displacement and continued suffering echo a broader pattern of marginalization and repression faced by Pashtuns under the Paki establishment. The military’s heavy-handed tactics in Tirah Valley reflect a deliberate disregard for the rights and well-being of its own citizens, with the occupied-government showing little interest in resolving the suffering of these communities. In their calls for justice and the right to resettle in their ancestral lands, the Kukikhel are once again met with resistance and violence, with the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) vowing to bring international attention to the injustices faced by the Pashtun community in Pakistan.

In a troubling incident involving a sanitation post has raised serious concerns about the Islamic Republic’s treatment of religious minorities. A question has emerged as to why religious identity was even a factor in assigning this position, which appears to directly violate Article 25 of Pakistan’s Constitution, which guarantees equality for all citizens. This discriminatory practice reinforces the troubling belief that Hindus and Christians are destined to fill sanitation roles in Pakistan, regardless of their skills or qualifications.

Earlier, this systemic mistreatment was highlighted when a Christian sanitation worker was brutally assaulted by a Muslim family in Karachi. The worker, punished for a allegedly delayed garbage collection, was left chained in the street for hours, further underscoring the dehumanizing treatment faced by the country’s minority communities. The assault serves as yet another example of the widespread abuse faced by Pakistan’s marginalized Christian population, who are often derogatorily referred to as “Chuhra” – a term that historically denoted a low caste, specifically used for sanitation workers.

This deeply discriminatory attitude extends across Pakistan, where the 80% of sanitation workers are Christian, and they are subjected to both verbal abuse and physical mistreatment. The labeling of Christians and Hindus as “low caste” by Islamic society reinforces the ongoing cycle of social exclusion, where these individuals are confined to menial, degrading jobs. The lack of legal protections and societal support further exacerbates their suffering, as they continue to be treated as second-class citizens in their own country.

A tragic and brutal incident unfolded in Wadi Tirah Maidan (Khyber), where a mortar shell struck children returning home from school, leaving one young student martyred and five others seriously injured. These were students of Government Primary School Hashim Khan Clay Bar Qambarkhel, merely heading home after a school holiday—hardly “security threats.” Yet, the tragedy raises an unsettling question: has the Punjabi Pakistan Army declared war on Pashtuns?

For the Pashtun community, such incidents are becoming disturbingly routine. Regions like South and North Waziristan are subjected to an increasingly oppressive military presence, with countless checkpoints and soldiers patrolling their lands. The Pak Army has intensified its presence in these areas, allegedly to counter security threats, but the reality is far from these claims. In this highly militarized zone, Pashtuns face a targeted campaign of violence and repression, aimed at controlling this resource-rich region. What the Pak Army frames as “security operations” has translated into the systematic suffering and displacement of Pashtuns.

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) has been vocal about these atrocities, but even their reports fall short of capturing the full extent of the Army’s brutality. The crackdown in Pashtun lands is driven by a colonial mindset—an attempt by the Punjabi-Pak military to dominate and marginalized Pashtun communities.

The Army’s so-called security strategy has become a cover for ethnic violence, with innocent children, like those martyred and wounded in Wadi Tirah, paying the ultimate price. The Paki establishment has turned its forces against them, effectively treating Pashtuns as enemies within their own homeland.