'Only non-Muslims will be recruited as sweepers,' says Khyber Minister
Pakistani Christians have been angered by a statement by the Chief Minister of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that only “non-Muslims will be recruited as sweepers”.
The province, known for short as KPK, borders Afghanistan. Its Chief Minister, Pervez Khattak, who is in former international cricketer Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), says that he was quoted out of context and misinterpreted.
Khattak denied that he intended anything derogatory. He said that he was only responding to minorities’ concerns over access to jobs they have traditionally taken, now being denied by applicants who claim that as Muslims they cannot do “unclean” jobs anyway.
Nevertheless, the Christians’ anger (sparked when a local Urdu channel, Capital TV, reported the statement) went viral, and has hit national headlines because it highlights long-entrenched discriminatory practices rooted in the Indian sub-continent’s history, and still faced by Pakistan’s Christians and low-caste Hindus.
Christians took Khattak’s remark to be deeply offensive, with many saying that it showed the “true” stance of PTI, whose election slogan in May was “Justice, Humanity and Self-Esteem”. Read more
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