Do You Know About the Rat-Children of Pakistan?
Pakistan is the country where most of the people are ready to do anything in the name of religion. The rat children of Pakistan are a glaring example of it. If you have happened to spend some time in Pakistan and had the opportunity to travel through the country. It is quite probable that you would have seen some beggars wearing long robes with very small heads and flat foreheads that give them a look of some rodent. They are called the ‘Rats of Shah Dola’.
Shah Dola was a Sufi Saint of the subcontinent who lived during the era of the last Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. During his life, Shah Dola took care of mentally disabled children who were abandoned by their parents. These children used to beg in order to earn their keep.
It is said that saint Shah Dola could bless the childless couples with children but he had one condition, that the couple would donate (literally) their firstborn to his service. Blinded by the desperation, parents started giving their firstborn to him. His shrine is in the current day Gujrat city of Pakistan. Even after his death, childless couples kept coming to his shrine, begging him to bless them with children.
This practice is still going on and people still abandon their first child at his shrine. The administration of the shrine then put a heavy iron cap on the head of these children…
