GHOTKI is otherwise a quiet city in Sindh, bordering Pakistan’s Punjab in the north and India in the east. Historically, this place has been at a crossroads of invading armies, tribal conflicts while the region has boasted of being the gateway to the Muslim Sufis, who blissfully followed Muhammad Bin Qasim’s soldiers to the northern, fertile plains of the land of five rivers.

Today, the town is caught in a hostile conflict of a different kind and is obviously the focal point of Hindu-Muslim controversy that has spilled over the borders of two extremely hostile nations. Just a few days ago, riots broke out in Ghotki, over blasphemy allegations against a Hindu school principal.

And curiously, something happened that triggered passions; #ArrestMianMithoo started to trend on Pakistani Twitter, referring to an extremist Muslim cleric and an influential local politician whom Hindu families have dreaded in Sindh. The centre of this ‘two-nation’ and this ‘two religion’ controversy is Mian Mithu (loving name for a pet parrot) who has been named and accused in a kidnapping case and involved in unlawful act of ‘forcing religious conversion’ of the area’s Hindu, teenage girls in the region, with ulterior motives.

Prima facie, it was thought that Pir Saheb of the (shrine) Dargah Bharchundi Sharif Abdul Haq (alias Mian Mithu) had nothing to do with the rioting or the alleged ‘blasphemy’ that took place here. However, shortly after the riots, a video of the accused, identified in the chaos and riots, had emerged.

Mostly, the Sindhi Hindu activists and journalists were instrumental in trending the parrot ‘Mithu’ on Twitter. They all knew the real reason behind the Ghotki carnage, the recent abduction of a Hindu girl in the hands of the the goons of Mithu ‘mafia’.

The riots began when a teenage student of Sindh Public School in Ghotki uploaded a video to Facebook recently, accusing his Hindu school teacher Nautan Daas of the most dangerous crime of ‘blasphemy’. The student’s father Abdul Aziz Rajput registered an FIR against Daas for his alleged act of blasphemy. The FIR and the Facebook video accusation went viral on Facebook. At the request of Pakistan government, his account has since been taken down by Facebook. But the damage had already been done.

All this fracas has triggered frenzied crowds to run amok on the streets of Ghotki and neighbouring cities, resulting in widespread riots, causing injuries and damage to properties. The angry mobs also demanded the arrest of Nautan Daas. They went on to vandalise Hindu temples, the school and the scattered homes of Hindus in the neighbourhood.

Expectedly, the aggrieved, local Hindus, in turn, began asking for Mithu’s arrest. His past record of bullying and persecution of Hindus have been well known, not just locally but nationally, since 2012. Now he had been exposed at the forefront of the Ghotki riots.

Mian Mithu first became a household name in 2012 when a young Hindu woman, Rinkle Kumari, was abducted and forced to convert to Islam so that she could marry a young Muslim man named Naveed Shah. Rinkle Kumari, the daughter of a local school teacher Nand Laal, was a mere teenager at the time of her alleged ‘abduction’.

According to the narrative of the local Hindus, This unfortunate saga of the minority community’s teenage girl abduction and consequent coercive ‘marriage’ with a Muslim were reported to be masterminded and supported by none other than Mian Mithu. In one of the interviews given to the BBC, Mian Mithu denied that he had forcibly converted any ‘young’ Hindu, teenager.

However, the members of the Hindu community have alleged that he is really   the notorious ‘Muslim’ in the area who enjoys the reputation of ‘welcoming’ Hindu teenage girls into his fold, converting them to Islam and then marrying them off to local Muslim aspirants. In addition, he claimed to have thrown over a cordon of protection, around the captive Hindu girls by way of offering them security against threats that were forthcoming from the victim families.

After Rinkle had declared herself a Muslim in court in 2012, the New York Times reported in a story that ‘Mitho triumphantly led the new convert from the courthouse, parading her before thousands of cheering supporters.’

Ghotki’s Hindu community has further accused the ‘parrot’ Mithu of aiding and abetting the abductions and conversions, and threatening the courts into submission  with the assistance of his extremist/militant following.

‘Mian Mitho is a terrorist and a thug. He takes the girls, and keeps them in his home for sexual purposes’, Nand Lal alleged point-blank to the New York Times, noting that Mithu’s armed guards escorted his daughter to court appearances and news conferences.

Rinkle Kumari’s highly sensitive case has gone all the way to the Supreme Court, yet she has been unable to gain an iota of relief, from her incarceration. It does seem that there is no more possibility of her escaping the shackles of a forced marriage.

Even her father, Nand Laal fled to Lahore soon after accusing Mian Mithu of the abduction and forced conversion. ‘The father found refuge and welcome in Gurdwara in Lahore in Punjab province with the rest of his family,’ it was reported.

Mian Mithu was, meanwhile, literally cursed by the civil society and consequently lost his political ticket for the assembly in 2013, denied by the Pakistan People’s Party.

One can only assume that the ‘parrot’ Mian Mithu continued to lead a lavish lifestyle given that he runs the Bharchundi Sharif shrine, travels with armed guards and was a member of the parliament in 2008–2013.

After Mian Mithu had been thrown out of the PPP in the aftermath of the Rinkle Kumari case, he was forced to fight the election in his capacity as an independent candidate.

The incumbent, who won with more than 59,000 votes in the 2008 national elections, got a pathetic 69 votes only in 2013 because of a toxic social campaign against him. Not to be outdone, he played his ‘victim card’ by going around, saying that he had been punished for serving Islam and even accused former Sindh chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah of asking him to choose between politics and Mullah-ism. ‘I told him I am a Muslim first, then a Pakistani and then a politician. I cannot quit serving Islam’, explained the notorious parrot Mithu.

Often, the Lady Luck likes to shine back upon people who have lost their fortunes. Clearly, Mian Mithu drew his strength from much more powerful quarters of Pakistan.

In 2015, when a motley crowd was being brought together desperately to prop up Imran Khan as a prime ministerial candidate, Mian Mithu was also reportedly presented by the military establishment to the Imran Khan’s PTI. The political party extended an invitation to Mian Mithu to join it in 2015. But his reputation was too hot to handle, even for the PTI. It was not a very good idea.

His photo ops with Imran Khan back then went viral on the social media.

One should not assume that Mian Mithu’s power diminished. He has continued with his criminal and/or nefarious activities against religious minorities in the Sindh region and protests against him have continued.

Mithu has preferred to live near Pannu Akil, a massive, newly built military cantonment, located only about 40 kilometres from Ghotki. He is reportedly, seen frequently in the company of the military officers at times allegedly at the firing range, practising at the shooting range targets. A few local people have claimed that he enjoys access to the office of Pakistan’s current army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Mian Mithu enjoys his friendship with ranking government officials in official functions or award ceremonies.

Local people further agree that Mithu is gifted with an ‘evergreen’ and charming personality. A baby-faced, innocent-looking, bearded ‘Muslim’, whom the military establishment lives to promote. His subjugation of religious minorities has continued despite strong social and political movements against him for years.

This is where the current Ghotki incidence figures in. According to reports filed by local Sindhi journalist Ibrahim Kumbhar, another Hindu girl aged 11, Monika Kumari, was abducted, in 2018 from the area. Ultimately, she was recovered by the police, presented in court and released because of her under age.

And since she was from the unsafe area of Hala (near Hyderabad), Ghotki’s ‘blasphemy-accused’ Hindu school teacher Nautan Daas allegedly gave her protection. It did not help that Daas and the Hindu community had supported and voted for the PPP’s candidate Ahmad Mehar against the candidate Mian Mithu.

The local residents have repeatedly stated that Mian Mithu had an axe to grind and a false blasphemy case was made up to whip controversy and deflect attention from the abduction of the girl. The Mithu gang allegedly abducted Monika Kumari yet again, reporters had told the media a few days before the blasphemy charges against Daas emerged. And so, the parrot continues to survive and roam freely to mobilise his resources and play the game of hide and seek from law.

It is unfortunate that like the ancient city of Pompeii, the city of Ghotki has continued to burn, dragging in the political leaders of two countries which share an uneasy truce and border.

The story does not end here. It has only paused. Societies in India and Pakistan are patriarchal. Both countries boast of towns and cities like Ghotki, where so many Monikas keep struggling with their circumstances and are mercilessly taped and tortured by parrots like Mian Mithu.