Avtar Singh to represent Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu minority in the next parliament
Avtar Singh to represent Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu minority in the next parliament
Avtar Singh Khalsa will represent Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu minority in the next parliament, where he hopes to serve the entire country, he said.
Few Afghans are as invested in the government’s quest for peace and stability as the dwindling Sikh and Hindu minorities, which have been decimated by decades of conflict. The community numbered more than 80,000 in the 1970s, but today only around 1,000 remain.
Khalsa will run unopposed for a seat in the lower house of parliament that was apportioned to the minority by a presidential decree in 2016.
“I want to serve not only my Sikh and Hindu brothers. I have to be able to serve all Afghan people, no matter which ethnicity or group they belong to. Our services must reach everyone,” he told the Associated Press during an interview inside a colourfully decorated temple in Kabul.
52-year-old Avtar Singh Khalsa is a a Sikh and longtime leader of the community, who lived most of his life in Kabul.
Sikhs and Hindus have suffered widespread discrimination in the conservative Muslim country and have also been targeted by Islamic extremists.
“We must try to save our people from this chaos,” Khalsa said. “By any means and at any cost we must ask for our rights from the government. Your rights will not be given to you, you must earn them,” Khalsa said.
“I sacrifice myself for those of my brothers who have been through all kinds of pain and suffering,” he said. “I don’t care if I lose my whole family and get killed for this cause. I will struggle until I get their rights.”
Khalsa will join parliament at a time when the Afghan government is struggling against a resurgent Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate.
-PTC News
