A health care provider belonging to the Ahmadi minority group was shot useless in his clinic by unidentified gunmen allegedly due to his religion in Pakistan’s Punjab province, police mentioned on July 28.
Dr Zakaur Rehman, in his 50s, was current at his dental clinic positioned in Lala Musa, Gujrat, about 200 km from Lahore, when two unknown motorcyclists got here there and opened fireplace on him, killing him on the spot and fled, police mentioned.
The sufferer’s household mentioned he had no enmity with anybody and that the killing seems to have been motivated by religion. He’s survived by his spouse, a son and three daughters.
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan claimed that Dr Rehman was the consultant of the Gujrat chapter.
Amir Mahmood, an official of Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan, condemned the killing of Dr Rehman and mentioned two different Ahmadis, Ghulam Sarwar and Rahat Ahmad Bajwa, had been shot useless for his or her religion in Punjab final month.
He mentioned a latest choice by Pakistan’s Supreme Court docket to grant bail to an Ahmadi accused has additional intensified the hate marketing campaign towards Ahmadis.
“Supreme Court docket judges are additionally within the crosshairs of this hate marketing campaign. The identification of these finishing up these campaigns isn’t any secret. Why is the federal government not taking any motion towards them?” he requested.
Mahmood mentioned the instigators of those campaigns of hate and violence have to be dropped at justice and solely then can we hope that these faith-based killings will cease.
He additionally demanded an finish to this hate marketing campaign towards the Ahmadiyya group.
In 1974, Pakistan’s parliament declared the Ahmadi group non-Muslim. A decade later, they had been banned from calling themselves Muslims, from preaching and from travelling to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage.
In line with the information launched by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in 2021, there are 96.47% Muslims within the nation, adopted by 2.14% Hindus, 1.27% Christians, 0.09% Ahmadi Muslims and 0.02% Others.
Minorities in conservative, Muslim-majority Pakistan typically complain of harassment by extremists.