Karachi, Pakistan - About 300 Pakistani Christian and Hindu minorities protested a recent US decision branding Muslim Jamaat-ud-Dawa group a terrorist body.
The demonstrators said the Islamic group did charity work that benefited minorities in Muslim Pakistan.
"We believe the US action against Dawa will deprive the poor from charities provided by them like medical, water and food," said Ratan Kumar, a Hindu shopkeeper.
"Its volunteers never asked us to convert in return," he said.
Dawa is headed by hardline cleric Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who also founded the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group involved in separatist insurgency in Indian-administered part of divided
Kashmir.
The United States last month declared Dawa a terrorist organisation saying it was new face of Lashkar, which was banned by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in January 2002.
This was the second such demonstration in two days. Some 1,000 people held a similar rally in Hyderabad district, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Karachi.
Dawa's relief work was prominently covered in the local media following the October 8 earthquake which destroyed a large swathe of northeastern Pakistan, killing nearly 74,000 people and rendering another 3.5 million homeless.
"The US decision was wrong because we are not involved in any terrorism," Dawa spokesman Yahya Mujahid said. "We carry out charity works in poor areas irrespective of religion, cast or sect of the people."