India registered a formal protest with Pakistan on Friday, 1 January over the destruction of a Hindu temple in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday according to numerous media sources.
Members of the Hindu community had recently got permission to renovate the shrine of Shri Paramhans Ji Maharaj and the Krishna Dwara Mandir in the village of Teri, in the Karak district, only for Islamic radicals to attack the temple and set it on fire.
“The matter was taken up officially with the Pakistani side and a strong protest was lodged,” a source told the Hindustan Times.
Some 30 persons, including radical cleric Maulana Shareef, were arrested by the police, after the Pakistan Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the issue. Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed agreed to hear the matter after a meeting with Ramesh Kumar, a Pakistani lawmaker from the minority community, according to HT.
On Twitter, Pakistan Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Qadri said on Thursday that the attack was a “conspiracy against sectarian harmony” and that protection of the religious freedom of minorities was a “religious, constitutional, moral and national responsibility”.
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