“FORCIBLE conversions of Muslims in the Indian Dominion are taking place on a fairly large scale,” said Mr Zahid Hussain, Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India, in an exclusive interview to Dawn in Karachi on Sunday [Nov 23]. Mr Zahid Hussain also said that the number of refugees in the Humayun Tomb Camp had now again swollen to more than 25,000. There were two other “concentrations” of Muslims in Tehar, a village about seven miles from Delhi. … There were about 12,000 Muslim refugees in these two camps. All of them wanted to be evacuated to Pakistan at any cost.

… The condition in Delhi was ... described by the High Commissioner as “peaceful but not normal”. The Muslims could not move out of their houses freely with the result that they could not pursue their usual avocations. There was no such thing as “mixed localities” in Delhi now. The Hindu localities were practically “out of bounds” for the Muslims and if any Muslim perchance walked into such areas, in nine cases out of ten, he was attacked. Some Hindus, he added, were, of course, trying to protect the Muslims from such attacks. — Dawn Special Correspondent

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2022