ISLAMABAD: Leaders of the Hindu community are seeking an audience with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to seek the implementation of an accord, finalised between prime ministers Liaquat Ali Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1950.

Also known as the LiaquatNehru Agreement, the pact stipulated that the heads of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) in both countries would be from the respective minorities in both countries, i.e. a Hindu should head the ETPB in Pakistan and vice versa.

Hindu representatives got in touch with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani on Saturday and asked him to arrange their meeting with the prime minister.

The ETPB is a key government department that administers properties left behind by Hindus, Sikhs and others who migrated to India after partition, as well as places of worship and the religious sites of minorities located in Pakistan.

Tall(ing to Dawn, Pakistan Hindu Council President Chela Ram Kewlani said his community felt they were being treated like `secondclass citizens` `Take the example of the ETPB, which should, by rights, be headed by a Hindu. But since partition, it has almost always had a Muslim chief,` he said.

He said that India had been honouring the LiaquatNehru Agreement and their ETPB was always headed by a Muslim. But Pakistan has never honoured the agreement.

Pakistan constituted ETPB under the Evacuee Trust Properties (Management and Disposal) Act in 1975. It is a corporate body with the power to acquire, hold and dispose of both movable and immovable properties.