JAFARABAD, Pakistan (UCAN) -- About 200 Hindu protesters have been shouting slogans, burning tires and holding a daily hunger strike here in Balochistan province for more than a week to demand the release of seven Hindus abducted recently.

A local newspaper has quoted Hindu leaders as threatening to boycott the Feb. 18 general elections and migrate to safer places after seven of their community members, six of them traders, were kidnapped in less than two months.

The protesters began their hunger strike and "sit-in" on Feb. 3. Since then, members of panchayat (village councils) from the surrounding area along with family members and relatives of those abducted have gathered daily at an intersection in Jafarabad, a town 1,200 kilometers southwest of Islamabad.

The site is about half a kilometer from Baloch Rice Mill, where Ravi Kumar, 19, was abducted on Jan. 28. According to local police, four armed men broke into the mill and abducted him.

Talking with UCA News on Feb. 12, Haripal Das, Kumar's father, described the abduction as tyranny. "Every day we gather here and then leave in the evening, hopeless and dejected," he said.

For the daily hunger strike, they take only water from morning to evening.

Another man who gave his name as Gyanchand, told UCA News his elder brother, Doctor Kundan Das, and two Hindu businessmen were seized from a passenger van in Jafarabad district on Jan. 26.

He said the local trade union expressed solidarity with the local Hindu merchants, and business centers and shops remained closed in the area from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1.

The protesters chanted "Stop the bullying" and "Let us live in peace" as some burned tires on Sohbatpur Road.

Hindus, Christians and Sikhs are minorities in Pakistan, where about 95 percent of the population are Muslims. They have faced incidents of discrimination and abuse over the decades since the partition of British India in 1947, when Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan were created. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims died in communal killings after the boundaries of the two countries were drawn. Today, 2.5 million of Pakistan's 160 million people are Hindus.

The recent abductions have upset the small community. Gyanchand said his mother is in shock over the kidnapping of his brother. "Do not return home unless you bring him back," he quoted her as saying. A member of the local panchayat, he insisted the strike would continue until all those who were abducted have been recovered.

Gyanchand said that since they began their protest, three more Hindus were kidnapped on Feb. 10, two of them in Balochistan and another in neighboring Sindh province.

"The local Hindu minority is only boycotting the upcoming general elections in Jafarabad district for now, but the 200,000 Hindus in the whole of Balochistan will boycott the elections if the authorities fail to recover the Hindu hostages," he asserted.

Some Hindu leaders oppose such drastic measures. Talking to UCA News, Basant Lal Gulshan, a former member of the Balochistan legislative assembly, said he and others are trying to convince the aggrieved community members not to boycott the elections.

"This will not solve the problem of our security," he maintained. "Good leaders need to be elected to ensure the protection of the Hindu minority."

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