It is to the credit of the peaceful Hindus that they have never taken to armed resistance, not even once. However, any sign of peaceful Hindu protest is brutally crushed by the Islamic regime. Their most prominent leader, Sudham Chand Chawla, regarded as the Mahatma Gandhi for the Hindus in Pakistan, was killed by government death squads on January 28, 2002. Chawla's only crime was he waged a peaceful struggle to restore usurped land belonging to the Hindus and for pursuing a successful legal battle against the government to restore equal voting rights to the Hindu minority. The separate electorate system which had been in effect since 1984 subjected the people of Pakistan to an electoral system which discriminates on the basis of religion. This system denied religious minorities their right of universal adult franchise.