In the final census conducted prior to partition in 1941, Hindus constituted approximately 5.9 percent of the population in North-West Frontier Province,[5]: 22  which later amalgamated with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to become Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

With violence and religious cleansing accompanying the partition of India in 1947, the vast majority departed the region en masse, primarily migrating eastward to states that ultimately fell on the eastern side of the Radcliffe Line including Delhi, East Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.

The Gandharan civilization features prominently in the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharatha,[13] The Vedic texts refer to the area as the province of Pushkalavati.

The ruins of these temples can be found at Nandana, Malot, Siv Ganga, Katas, or Amb, as well as across the west bank of the Indus river at the foothills of the Sulaiman and Hindu Kush mountain ranges, such as at Kafir Kot, Bilot Sharif, or Gumbat.

[15][16] At the height of Shahi rule under king Jayapala, the kingdom had extended to Kabul and Bajaur to the northwest, Multan to the south, and the plains of Punjab to the east.

During his campaigns, many Hindu temples and Buddhist monasteries had been looted and destroyed, as well as many people being forcibly converted into Islam.

[19] During the colonial era, census reports detailed that much of the indigenous Hindu population in the North-West Frontier Province chiefly belonged to castes and tribes involved in trade such as the Arora, Bhatia, Bhatiara, or Khatri, while others formed part of tribes primarily engaged in agriculture or the military including the Gurjar and Mohyal Brahmin; many of whom form portions of contemporary ethnolinguistic groups such as the Hindkowans, Hazarewals, Kohistanis, or Saraikis.

[8][7] In a similar manner to the Baloch Hindus to the south, Hindus belonging to the various castes and tribes who were indigenous to the frontier regions had considerable Islamic influence, owing to their status as a religious minority in the region for centuries, and thus formed religious syncretism that incorporated aspects from both faiths into their cultures and traditions.

Many of those are caste and tribes such as Agarwal, Arora, Brahman, Bhat, Bhatiara, Chamar, Chuhra, Dhobi, Dogra, Gorkha, Jat, Meo and the like.

[8]: 93–94 Traditionally, Hindu members of the castes and tribes who were indigenous to the frontier regions of the Indian subcontinent (between the Indus River, Sulaiman range, and the Hindu Kush mountains) had longstanding trading relationships with Afghanistan along with other regions of western and central Asia, which they linked with the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India.

Conversely, most of the Hindu migrants in the North-West Frontier Province were involved with the military, primarily concentrated in town cantonments.

The Hindus in the Province, are, in the main, dependent upon trade and military service, as the bulk of the Musalman population is supported by agriculture.

The Powinda trade through the Gomal Pass, which is entirely in the hands of Hindus, is mainly responsible for the large indigenous Hindu population of the district.

[21] During the colonial era (British India), prior to the partition in 1947, decadal censuses enumerated religion in North-West Frontier Province, and not in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

[25] In Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Hindus enjoy religious freedom and live peacefully alongside the Muslims.

The city of Peshawar today is home to four Hindu tribes– the Balmiks, the Rajputs, the Heer Ratan Raths and the Bhai Joga Singh Gurdwara community.

[26] But in other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa like Buner, Swat and Aurakzai districts, Hindu and Sikh families have been targeted by the Taliban for failing to pay Jizya (religious tax).