Pakistani police demolish mosque of minority Ahmadi sect

MULTAN, Pakistan – A spokesman for Pakistan’s minority Ahmadis says authorities demolished a 70-year-old mosque belonging to the sect in a remote village in eastern Punjab province.

Saleem-ud-Din says district police moved in over the weekend to demolish the mudbrick mosque in Hasilpur, a Muslim-majority village with only about a dozen Ahmadi residents.

He says the mosque’s dome reserved for the prayer leader was destroyed and left in a pile of rubble.

Din says authorities claimed the mosque was built illegally on government land, which he denies. There was no immediate government comment.

There are about half a million of Ahmadis in Pakistan, which has a population of 220 million. Pakistan declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974.

Ahmadi homes and places of worship are often targeted by Sunni militants who consider them heretics.