Sikh Marriages Act being implemented, says Azma

LAHORE:Minister for Information and Culture Azma Bokhari has said religious minorities have always been very important for the PMLN.

She expressed these views while talking to media persons at DGPR here on Wednesday. The minister said, “The Punjab CM considers religious minorities her priority. The countries that consider themselves champions of human rights, the Sikh Marriage Act does not exist there. Pakistan is being praised all over the world for this act. Many important decisions have been taken in the provincial cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

According to those decisions, four hundred billion rupees Kisan Card has also been approved. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif is working on projects that were not even promised in the election campaign. One lac houses will be built in all the districts of the Punjab. The CM will inaugurate this project on August 14.”

She said the previous ‘fraudulent’ government had taken loan of billions of rupees but did not build a single house. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz herself is the guardian of orphans. Our government is going to give electric bikes to orphans. A mischief party made a lot of noise for overseas but did nothing. Our government is going to facilitate the overseas of eight countries under the online system. She said that a sad incident could have happened in Sargodha but our government prevented this incident from happening. Extremism is a big problem for us. We have to eliminate extremism from our state, the minister said.

On this occasion, Minister for Minority Affairs Ramesh Singh Arora said that the basis of Sikh religion are in Pakistan. “At the end of 2018, the Sikh Marriage Act was introduced as a private bill, the bill was passed, but unfortunately it was not taken serious by the previous government. The rules have been made in a record period of three months under the leadership of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. Punjab has become the first province where the Sikh Marriage Act has been implemented. I am grateful to the leadership of PML-N, especially the CM and all the members of the cabinet who passed this act,” the minority minister said.

The minister said Maryam Nawaz Sharif had said earlier that religious minorities are the crown of her head and she proved it by coming to Maryamabad on the occasion of Easter and also distributed grants to 10,000 families.

Baisakhi Mela was also inaugurated by Maryam Nawaz herself, the minister said and added entire team of the Human Rights Department is showing excellent performance and five-year roadmap is being prepared by the department. He said that work on Hindu Marriage Act is also in process.