In a chilling sequence of events, two members of the Ahmadiyya Community were gunned down in broad daylight in separate incidents in Punjab on Saturday.
However, the police managed to apprehend a minor involved in one of the attacks.
The attacks took place in the Sayeed Allahpur area of Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab on Saturday.
In the first incident, a senior citizen, 62-year-old Ghulam Sarwar, was returning home after offering prayers at his local Ahmadiyya worship place, Baitul Zikr. As he neared his home, he was ambushed by a young man who shot him and fled. The attack proved fatal, and Sarwar died on the spot.
Around 20 minutes later, reports came in of a second attack which targetted 30-year-old Rahat Ahmad Bajwa.
Bajwa was returning home from his commercial kitchen (Pakwan Centre). As he rounded the mosque in his village, he was ambushed and shot.
The police managed to apprehend one of the assailants. During questioning, it emerged that the murder suspect was a minor between 16-17 years of age.
The suspect allegedly told police that he studied in a religious seminary, which is allegedly affiliated with Ahle-Sunnat Jamaat. The student allegedly confessed to the police that he had committed the act on religious grounds.
The seminary's administrator, Sajid Latif, is known to have agitated against Ahmadis.
Pakistan Ahmadiyya Community Spokesperson Amir Mehmood termed the targetted attacks as incidents of terrorism and strongly condemned them.
He stressed it was important to bring those to book who were spreading extremism and were inciting children to hate members of the Ahmadiyya Community enough to murder them in cold blood.
Mehmood stated that those fanning flames were quite apparent, and the government needs to deal with them as per the law.
He warned that they have witnessed an increase in anti-ahmadi activities in Mandi Bahauddin for a while, in addition to spreading hate about the community. He said that some people had threatened pregnant women who were members of the community.
The community spokesperson lamented that no legal action had been taken against the suspects, which had further emboldened them to the point that when a police officer, who is also a member of the Ahmadiyya Community, was about to be appointed in Mandi Bahauddin, a campaign was launched against the officer in addition to threatening the officer.
Recently, two videos from Jhelum went viral in which a local leader of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) openly threatened to hang Ahmadis if they performed the ritual sacrifice on Eidul Adha.