The Local Police, administration officials say that the city has a low crime rate, which allows them to easily arrange for the main religious festivals.
In Mithi’s desert city, Hindus prepare meals for fasting Muslims, who in turn gather to welcome a procession by Holi, a rare moment of religious solidarity.
Discrimination against minorities is deep, but those tensions are not found in Mithi de Sindh, a rich city of wavy sand dunes and mud brick houses.
“All traditions and rituals here are celebrated together,” said Raj Kumar, a 30 -year -old Hindu businessman AFP.
“You’ll see that in Holi, young Hindu bind to young Muslims, celebrating together and applying colors to each other,” he added.
“Even at the end of Muslims they call prayer, Imam says’ peace to Hindu and Muslims.”
This year, the Hindu Festival of Holi and the Sacred Month of Ramazan fell together. Both events move every year according to the lunar calendar.
Holi, the color festival, has marked for centuries the arrival of the spring and strident crowds thrown into color and water one on the other.
On Thursday, hundreds of Hindus carried out a procession through the streets of Mithi, one of the few cities where the majority form, so that their Muslim neighbors receive a hot welcome in the city square.
“We have learned to live together from childhood. This has reached us through generations, and we are also following it, ”said the local Mali Mali, 53, after organizing a meal for Muslims to break their fasting.
Cows, considered sacred in Hinduism, freely roam the streets of Mithi, while women use traditional embroidery saris adorned with mirror work.
There is no flesh in the city, since the flesh is prohibited in Hinduism, and Muslims only sacrifice goats during the festivals.
Mithi, a city of around 60,000 people, is predominantly Hindu, in a country where 96 percent of the 240 million people are Muslim and 2pc are Hindus.
Fozia Haseb, a Christian woman, traveled from Karachi, about 320 kilometers away, to witness the mixed occasions.
“People who follow three religions are here: Christians, Hindu and Muslims,” he said. “We wanted to see for ourselves if this was correct, and there is no doubt that it is.”
‘There are no divisions between us’
Ramazan is a month of peaceful prayer and reflection in Islam, and Hindus respected that their Muslim neighbors would not join Holi’s celebrations with the usual fervor due to religious observance.
“Today, I may not see the colors in me, but in the past, they soaked me in colors,” said Muslim clergy Babu Aslam Qaimkhani while applying dust to the face of the local Hindu PPP MNA Mahesh Kumar Malani.
“If a Hindu runs for a position, Muslims also vote for them, and vice versa,” said Malani, the only minority chosen MNA in the National Assembly.
As the Hindus celebrated with processions and visits to the temples, there was no armed security, a marked contrast with other parts of the country.
Freedom of religion or belief remains under constant threat in the country, with a religiously motivated violence and discrimination by increasing annually, according to the Pakistan Human Rights Commission.
The state authorities, often that they use religious disturbances to obtain political profits, have not been able to address this crisis, the commission said.
But in Mithi, said the 19 -year -old Muslim worker loves Ullah AFP: “There are no divisions between us. We are all human, and we are all the same. “
Local police and administration officials said the city has a low crime rate, with “without important security challenges”, which allows them to easily arrange for the main religious festivals.
“His business, his daily life and his interactions have been together for centuries and are still strong,” said local official Abdul Halem Jagirani.
‘A slight sense of fear’
The locals say that Mithi’s peaceful existence goes back to its remote location, leaving the sandyraws of the Tharparkar desert, which limits with Rajasthan’s modern Indian state.
With the infertile soil and the limited access to water, it was saved from centuries of looting and wars, and the bloody violence of the 1947 partition when India and Pakistan were created, and many Hindu fled through the new border.
But several residents said AFP that in recent years the prosperous city has seen an increase in newcomers as a result of its growing infrastructure.
An important nearby coal project has led workers from other provinces to the city, and with it, supporters of the Tehreek-I-Labbaik Pakistan Relociopolitical Party (TLP).
In the central square of the city, a large banner hangs for the FTA, which puts the explosive problem of blasphemy as its central concern.
“People who come from outside the city are causing some doubts and a slight feeling of fear,” said Padma Lodha, a 52 -year -old Hindu director at a local girls’ school. AFP.
“But in general, things are still well controlled and peaceful. “
