70-year-old minority Ahmadi doctor shot dead in Pakistan
Lahore: A 70-year-old Norwegian doctor, who was of Pakistani origin and belonged to the minority Ahmadi community, was shot dead in Punjab province allegedly because of his faith, police said on Wednesday.
The incident happened on Tuesday when the doctor was seeing a patient at his clinic when two armed men entered the premises and opened fire killing him on the spot.
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Police Inspector Tariq Mahmood said that the suspects have been identified as Babar Walayat and Hafiz Inamul Haq.
"The deceased was a Norwegian national of Pakistani origin. The members of his immediate family are living in Norway," Mahmood said.
He said one of the suspects Haq has an association with a radical Islamist party.
An official of Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Amir Mahmood told PTI that Rashid was killed only because of his faith.
"The victim's only crime was that he was an Ahmadi," Mahmood said and urged the government to take measures to stop religious extremists from promoting violence against Ahmadis.
Meanwhile, an elderly Ahmadi community leader was harassed by a mob of over 100 men outside the community’s worship place in Kasur, some 50 kms from Lahore.
"The mob comprising workers of the extremist outfit Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) forcibly stopped the minority community members from offering prayers and threatened to occupy the worship place if they go ahead with it," Mahmood said.
He said that the mob asked the community leader to also remove ‘Muhammad’ from his name.
The mob however was dispersed on the arrival of police.
Since the start of this year, as many as five worship places of the persecuted religious community have come under attack in Punjab province.
In two such incidents, local administration was directly involved in destroying the minarets of a worship place, as per a report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
