Pakistani police search for suspect in killing of Ahmadi minority doctor
LAHORE: Pakistani police stepped up their search Monday for the suspect in the killing of a doctor from the country's Ahmadi minority, the latest in a string of deadly attacks targeting the community.
The physician was gunned down at a private hospital where he worked in the eastern city of Sargodha on Friday. The gunman fled the scene.
The Ahmadi faith was established in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Pakistan's Parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974, with their homes and places of worship attacked over the decades by hard-liners who consider them heretics.
There are about 500,000 Ahmadis in Pakistan, a nation of more than 240 million.
No one claimed responsibility for Friday's killing but supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party have carried out many of the attacks on Ahmadis, accusing them of blasphemy.
Sargodha police official, Sikandar Ali, said the motive behind the killing of Dr. Sheikh Mahmood remains unclear. An investigation is ongoing, he said.
Mahmood's killing was the third attack on Ahmadis in Pakistan since April, said Amir Mahmood, a spokesman for the Ahmadi community.
He urged the government to protect Ahmadis, whose places of worship and even graveyards are also often desecrated by extremist groups.
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