How can a country, well into its 65th year of independence, be hurtling towards becoming an abyss for its minorities?
In the last fortnight, six Hindu temples in Sindh stand pitted, robbed and in two cases, razed by vandals, indicating a new outbreak of communal violence.
Last Friday, a temple in Hyderabad was set ablaze by unidentified arsonists, leaving a desecrated shrine and deity.
Prior to this incident and on the pretext of a Hindu having defiled the Quran, a Hindu communal home in Larkana became the victim of mob fury.
Another incident of burglary in a Tharparkar shrine has sparked mass outrage and were followed by two other incidents this week – in Hyderabad and Tando Adam Khan.
These are eloquent and ominous ciphers of the deplorable failure of this province’s ruling party, Pakistan Peoples Party, which raises deafening slogans of equality and tolerance, but fails to protect minorities.
There is little to negate the idea that religious insensitivity raised its brutal head after hardliners and madrassas mushroomed in Sindh.
Currently, the Hindu community views these attacks as a conspiracy to ignite forced migrations from Pakistan. On the other hand, activists recognise it as a catalyst for religious apartheid, but they also demand a scrutiny of IDPs from hardliner-infested regions of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the land mafia.
However, where the incidents have been more than tragic, they have instigated fury from the Hindu community.
From protests at Karachi and Hyderabad Press clubs, a shutdown in major towns of Thar to a long march from Badin, the community has come to the fore to send out a forbidding message to extremists.