In a startling development, popular Twitter user and Pakistani rights activist, Rahat Austin, informed on Tuesday that he was stabbed with a knife. While taking to Twitter, he wrote, “I am attacked by a Jihadi, having a Knife. I don’t know maybe from the middle east or somewhere.” Rahat said that he was injured and admitted to the hospital.
https://twitter.com/johnaustin47/status/1346329221359046657?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwIn a video message shared with Opindia, Rahat Austin recounted, “Just moments ago, I was attacked by an Islamist jihadi. He had a knife and just by the way he said ‘Allahu Akbar’, I assume he is from a middle eastern country… Why do these people keep doing such things everywhere in the world? We are not doing anything wrong.”
He added, “I am just reporting cases of (severe) persecution, apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing…done by the government and people in Muslim-majority countries as a religious obligation. (They are) Doing it as part of religious obligation under ‘jihad’. We were 23% when Pakistan was made 70 years ago in 1947 and we are now 3% left.”
With a bruised faced caused due to the jihadi attack, Rahat Austin said, “It is a systematic genocide.” The rights activist concluded that the controlled media and government policies ensure that such cases never come to anyone’s notice and that now efforts were being made to stall his efforts to even report such crimes. “These are crazy people. I got attacked. If I didn’t myself, then, he would have beheaded me as they do with others. These are crazy people.”
Rahat Austin and his fight for ‘equality’ in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Rahat Austin has been the forefront of bringing cases of persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan to light through social media, which otherwise would have been brushed under the carpet by the Pakistani regime. While fighting for equal status in a Muslim-dominated country, he brazenly holds a mirror to the Pakistani society. Despite the hefty claims made by Imran Khan-led government on the safety and security of the minority communities in his ‘Naya Pakistan’, the attack on the Hindu rights activist is a testament to the contrary.
Only January 1, Rahat Austin took to Twitter to share details of a Hindu girl named Miza Kumari, the daughter of Rattan Lal who was abducted, raped and forcefully converted to Islam to marry a Muslim man in Bahu Bhati village in Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan. The activist shared a video in which the girl’s parents, who belong to an extremely humble background are heard pleading for help. “
We’ll kill ourselves if our daughter is not given back. We are poor, we can’t fight with culprits, no one is helping us in Pakistan. We request, who watching this video to help us”, said the distraught mother of Miza Kumari in the video message.