Global rights groups urge Pakistan to investigate minority killings
Pakistan's government must impartially investigate recent murders of members of the country's Ahmadiyya community, leading rights bodies said on Thursday, amid a surge in violence against the often-persecuted group.
Adherents of Ahmadiyya, a 4-million-strong minority group in Pakistan, have faced death, intimidation and a sustained hate campaign for decades. Ahmadiyya insist they are followers of Islam, but Pakistan declared the group non-Muslim in 1974 for regarding the sect's founder, Ghulam Ahmad, to be a prophet.
Orthodox Islam maintains there can be no prophets after Muhammad.
More than 260 members of the group have been killed in targeted gun or bomb attacks since 1984, when the sectarian violence started in Pakistan, according to statistics compiled by the community. "We live in the shadow of fear," group spokesperson Saleem Uddin said.
Rights groups said at least five members of the community had been killed because of their faith since summer, So far, the police have only been able to arrest suspects in two murders. A professor, a young doctor, a businessman and a Pakistani-American senior citizen were among those who had been murdered this year, Uddin said.
"There are few communities in Pakistan who have suffered as much as the Ahmadis," said Omar Waraich, head of South Asia at Amnesty International. (dpa)