KARACHI (Reuters) – A mob attacked a place of worship of Pakistan’s Ahmadi minority community in Karachi on Friday, killing at least one man, police and a community spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the Ahmadi community, Amir Mahmood, said the mob of 100-200 people beat a 47-year-old owner of a car workshop to death with bricks and sticks and was still surrounding the building, with around 30 people trapped inside.
The superintendent of police for Karachi’s Saddar neighbourhood, Mohammad Safdar, confirmed the death and told Reuters that police were mobilising efforts to subdue the crowd.
Ahmadis are a minority group considered heretical by some orthodox Muslims. Pakistani law forbids them from calling themselves Muslims or using Islamic symbols, and they face violence, discrimination and impediments blocking them from voting in general elections.
(Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Additional reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore)
