Mob beats to death man from persecuted Pakistan minority

A mob bushed to decease a subordinate of Pakistan's persecuted Ahmadiyya number connected Friday aft hundreds of extremist Islamists surrounded their spot of worship successful the larboard metropolis of Karachi, constabulary said.

A mob, galore from the anti-blasphemy governmental radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), stormed done constrictive streets of Saddar neighbourhood chanting slogans, enraged that Ahmadis were allegedly offering Friday prayers.

"One subordinate of the assemblage was killed aft the mob identified him arsenic an Ahmadi. They attacked him with sticks and bricks," Muhammad Safdar, a elder section constabulary authoritative successful the larboard metropolis of Karachi wherever the incidental happened.

"The mob included members of respective spiritual parties," helium told AFP.

Safdar said constabulary took astir 25 Ahmadis into custody for their safety.

An AFP writer astatine the country saw a situation van escorted by constabulary vehicles instrumentality the Ahmadi men away, aft negotiating with the 600-strong chanting mob.

The Ahmadiyya assemblage are considered heretics by the Pakistani authorities and person been persecuted for decades, but threats and intimidation person intensified successful caller years.

A section nonmigratory among the assemblage Abdul Qadir Ashrafi told AFP helium joined the mob to unit constabulary to apprehension the Ahmadis.

"We requested that the spot beryllium sealed and that those conducting the Friday prayers beryllium arrested, with transgression proceedings initiated against them," Abdul Qadir Ashrafi, a 52-year-old businessman said.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was "appalled by the orchestrated onslaught by a far-right spiritual enactment connected a colonial-era Ahmadi spot of worship".

"This nonaccomplishment of instrumentality and bid is simply a stark reminder of the continued complicity of the authorities successful the systematic persecution of a beleaguered community," it said connected X.

- Deadly mob unit -

Ahmadis, who fig astir 10 cardinal worldwide, see themselves Muslims, and their religion is identical to mainstream Islam successful astir each way, but their content successful different messiah has marked them blasphemous non-believers.

Pakistan's constitution has branded them non-Muslims since 1974, and a 1984 instrumentality forbids them from claiming their religion arsenic Islamic.

Unlike successful different countries, they cannot notation to their places of worship arsenic mosques, marque the telephone to prayer, oregon question connected the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Hardline TLP supporters regularly show Ahmadi places of worship and record constabulary complaints against them for identifying arsenic Muslims and conducting prayers successful a mode akin to Islamic practices -- amerciable successful Pakistan.

According to a tally kept by the community, six Ahmadis were killed successful 2024, and much than 280 since 1984.

In the aforesaid period, much than 4,100 Ahmadis person faced transgression charges including 335 nether blasphemy laws which transportation the decease penalty.

Mob unit is communal successful Pakistan, wherever blasphemy is an incendiary contented that carries the decease penalty.

Dozens of churches were ransacked successful the metropolis of Jaranwala successful 2023 erstwhile clerics utilized mosque loudspeakers to assertion that a Christian antheral had committed blasphemy, sparking a assemblage of hundreds of Muslim rioters.

Last August, the Supreme Court was pressured into backtracking connected a landmark ruling that would person allowed Ahmadis to signifier their religion arsenic agelong arsenic they bash not usage Muslim terms, aft weeks of protests by fundamentalist groups including decease threats to the main justice.

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