First in 20 years, Pakistan Cabinet gets Hindu cabinet minister
- Darshan Lal will coordinate between four Pakistani provinces as a minister of state in Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's cabinet.
- The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader won a National Assembly election in 2013 for the second time in a seat reserved for minorities.
- He practises at the Pirbhoomal Memorial Children Hospital in Ghotki district of Sindh.
FollowA 65-year-old doctor became the first Hindu minister in Pakistan in more than two decades after the cabinet of the country's new prime minister was sworn in.
Darshan Lal will coordinate between four Pakistani provinces as a minister of state in Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's cabinet, media reports said. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader won a National Assembly election in 2013 for the second time in a seat reserved for minorities.
He practises at the Pirbhoomal Memorial Children Hospital in Ghotki district of Sindh. The PML-N website lists as him as the president of the party's minority wing. He told Pakistan's Dawn newspaper in 2009 that minorities in the country, including Sikh, Christians and Hindus, had equal rights and religious freedom, and the "propaganda" against the plight of minorities in Pakistan had no truth. His comments came after the Taliban razed 11 houses of the Sikh community in the Orakzai Agency, a tribal region, to the ground. The Sikhs had reportedly failed to pay "Jazia", a payment the Taliban demanded of non-Muslims.
Pakistan's new 47-member cabinet that was sworn in on Friday retained old names, but some new leaders were included as ministers and ministers of state, including Khawaja Asif appointed as the country's first full-time foreign minister since 2013. The new prime minister is an ally of Nawaz Sharif and was formerly the petroleum minister.
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