Pak Hindu family held hostage, tortured for taking water from mosque tap

New Delhi, Sep 20 : Farm workers from a Hindu family in Pakistan's Rahim Yar Khan, city have landed in trouble for taking water from a mosque tap, according to a media report.

Some village landlords allegedly tortured and held them hostage for "violating the sanctity" of the place, Dawn news reported.

The incident took place a few days ago in Rahim Yar Khan when Alam Ram Bheel, a resident of Basti Kahoor Khan in the city suburbs, was picking raw cotton along with his other family members, including his wife, in a field.

When the family went outside a nearby mosque to fetch drinking water from a tap, some local landlords and their men beat them.

When the family was returning home after unloading the picked cotton, the landlords held them hostage at their 'dera' (outhouse) and tortured them again, the Dawn news report said.

Later, some Muslim residents of Basti Kahoor Khan got the Bheel family released.

Ram Bheel said the Airport police station did not register the case as the attackers were related to a local parliamentarian of the ruling PTI.

Ram said he held a sit-in outside the police station, along with another clan member Peter Jhon Bheel to protest the high-handedness, the report said.

Also a member of the district peace committee, Peter Jhon Bheel told Dawn news that they approached PTI MNA Javed Warriach who helped them lodge the FIR.

Jhon said he requested other members of the district peace committee to call an emergency meeting over the issue but they did not take him seriously.

PTI's south Punjab minority wing secretary general Yodhister Chohan told Dawn news that the incident was in his knowledge but due to the influence of a ruling party MP he preferred to stay away.

District Police Officer Asad Sarfraz said that he was looking into the matter.