Sikh Brothers Murdered: Two Sikh brothers were shot in the Bada area of Peshawar, Pakistan. Kuljit Singh and Ranjit Singh were shot by the assailants. Both the brothers used to run the grocery store. Both have died.
Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan has taken cognizance of the incident. He has directed the Inspector General of Police to take necessary action for the immediate arrest of the accused. CM Khan said that this incident is highly condemnable and sad and the elements involved in this heinous murder cannot escape the clutches of law. He resolved to provide justice to the families of the victims. According to the CM, this incident is an attempt to disturb the peaceful atmosphere in the city. The Chief Minister said that the provincial government would not allow such efforts to succeed.
This is the second such attack on the Sikh community in Peshawar in the last eight months. Earlier in September 2021, a Sikh ‘Hakim’ Sardar Satnam Singh was shot dead. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the ISIS branch, ISKP. 45-year-old Satnam Singh had been living in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for the last 20 years. He was running his clinic ‘Dharmandar Pharmacy’ on Charsadda Road in the city.
These attacks on the Sikh community in the last few years
In the year 2020 25-year-old Sikh Ravinder Singh was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Peshawar, Pakistan. Ravinder Singh died a day after a mob attacked Gurdwara Nankana Sahib in Lahore, where Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak Dev was born. Earlier in 2018, Charanjit Singh, a well-known member of the Sikh community, was murdered by unknown people in Peshawar. Similarly, Soren Singh, a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf National Assembly, was assassinated in Peshawar in 2016.
There are about 15,000 Sikhs living in Peshawar. Most are in Jogan Shah, a neighborhood of the provincial capital. Most members of the Sikh community in Peshawar are businessmen, while some run a pharmacy.