Despite the government announcing economic relief for minorities by 2025, progress on security, religious freedom and
LAHORE:
By 2025, Punjab’s record on the rights of religious minorities reflected a complex mix of political ambitions and challenges on the ground. As the provincial government rolled out expanded budgets, welfare schemes and legal reforms, human rights groups questioned their effectiveness, highlighting persistent gaps between official demands and lived realities. Over the last year, the Punjab government has significantly increased the budget for minority affairs. Development funds were enhanced for the repair and restoration of minority places of worship, including churches, temples and gurdwaras, and permission was also given to celebrate minority religious festivals at the official level in various districts.
Punjab Human Rights and Minority Affairs Minister Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora stated that in the education sector, the government introduced 5,000 scholarships for minority students, a quota system for degrees and government jobs and a special portal established to ensure implementation of the policy. Minority students were also prepared for the CSS exams at the expense of the state.
“Under welfare initiatives, the Minority Support Card project was launched in 2025, through which poor minority families were given financial assistance of Rs 10,500 on a quarterly basis, along with an additional Rs 15,000 on religious festivals. By 2025, the number of registered families was 50,000 to 6,000,002, which is 000,002 increased. The legal front, after the approval of Sikh Marriage Act 2024, progress was made in 2025 towards implementation of Hindu Marriage Act 2017,” Arora claimed.
But despite these measures, human rights activists and minority representatives maintained that the realities on the ground remained alarming. HRCP General Secretary Harris Khalique believed that although initiatives such as the Minorities Card and legislation related to the creation of the National Minorities Commission reflected the state’s awareness of the structural problems faced by religious minorities, symbolic or welfare-oriented measures cannot replace effective protection of fundamental rights.
“During 2025, the HRCP documented numerous cases of forced religious conversions, attacks on places of worship, and failures by law enforcement agencies to provide effective protection and justice. The true test of state commitment lies in preventing abuses against minorities, holding perpetrators accountable, and guaranteeing equal citizenship for all under the law,” Khalique said.
Peter Jacob, Executive Director of the Center for Social Justice, revealed that while the Punjab government was taking several steps, there was a need for measures to ensure sustainable economic development with respect to the fundamental rights of minorities. Prevention of child marriage must be ensured and the performance of the Mithaq (Covenant) Centers must be improved. At the same time, the government’s claims regarding the protection of sanitation workers also came under scrutiny when four workers reportedly died from toxic gas while cleaning sewers in Lahore and Gujranwala, prompting civil society to express concern over the lack of safety kits and machinery.
Minority rights lawyer Samuel Pyara stated that financial aid alone was insufficient for religious minorities. “Without education, tolerance in curricula and inclusion of minorities in policy-making, sustainable solutions are not possible. Trust cannot be restored without timely and rigorous action against violence and hate crimes,” urged Pyara.
Civil society and human rights organizations have called on the government to make protection, legal reforms, independent grievance mechanisms and genuine representation of minority communities the focus of policies in 2026. Transparent, consistent and inclusive implementation rather than charity-based measures is the true benchmark for evaluating the government’s claims regarding minority rights.
