Pakistan's Sindh province has ordered police to start closing all shops selling alcohol. (AP)
The provincial court of Pakistan's Sindh province ordered police on Thursday to start closing all shops selling alcohol, a prosecutor said.
The ruling came in a response to a concerned petitioner who challenged the public sale of alcohol, saying it adversely affects youth, the prosecutor Ghulam Mustafa said. Mustafa said there are 21 wholesale outlets and 116 retail shops selling alcohol in Sindh province.
Although the sale and consumption of alcohol is illegal for Muslims in Pakistan, the country's minorities - mainly Hindus and Christians - face no such prohibition, and many take advantage of this concession to purchase alcohol.
Within hours of the court order, shops where alcohol was once sold being shuttered across the province.
Local lawyer Nadeem A Shaikh said the ruling came after the court consulted with local leaders from the minority Hindu, Sikh and Christian sects, who responded by saying that alcohol consumption isn't permitted in their respective religions. Upon hearing this, according to Shaikh, the court ordered that all wine and liquor shops in Sindh be sealed with immediate effect.
The petitioner, Atam Prakash, praised the court order, saying he wanted to see the alcohol ban enforced across all of Pakistan.
"Why should this ruling be limited to Sindh? That's why we are taking this petition to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Our stance is that we have no objection against the sale of alcohol in Pakistan. But we object to alcohol being sold in the name of religious minorities," he said.
"It gives our community and our youth a bad name," Prakash told The Associated Press.
A prominent Hindu leader, Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, said in a statement that the sale of alcohol in the name of non-Muslims is a blasphemous act and insisted that the ban be upheld. He vowed to oppose any legal action by wine shop owners against the ban.
Karachi is the capital of Sindh province where the liberal party of former two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan's People's Party holds majority of seats in Sindh's provincial assembly.
Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, banned alcohol for Muslims during his rule in 1970s to appease Islamic hard-liners.
Drinking and gambling, which are forbidden in Islam, have not completely stopped but were largely driven underground.