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Gunmen kill six members of minority Islamic sect |
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October 31, 2000
LAHORE (AP) - Masked gunmen attacked worshippers of a minority Islamic sect in eastern Punjab province Monday, killing six people as they prayed and wounding eight others, police said. In a predawn attack four gunmen, armed with automatic assault rifles, fired at worshippers at Baitul Markaz mosque in Ghadalian, a village some 140 kilometers (84 miles) north of Lahore, the Punjab provincial capital, they said. Two of the victims died instantly, while four others died at the hospital. The gunmen fled in a car. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which is the deadliest in recent months on a place of worship. Ahmedis are reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics because they believe that the messiah, called Ahmed, came more than 100 years ago. In the early 1970s Pakistan made it illegal for Ahmedis to call themselves Muslims. Radical Islamic groups often assail Ahmedis, urging their arrest by police. Ahmedis are not allowed to have the call to prayer sound from their mosques or inscribe their mosques with verses of the Muslim's holy book, The Koran. Hundreds of Ahmedis have been charged under the country's controversial blasphemy laws, which makes it a crime punishable with death for anyone found guilty of defaming Islam or its prophet, Mohammed. Mainstream Muslims believe that Mohammed is the last prophet. They accuse Ahmedis of worshipping a prophet after Mohammed, by the name of Ahmed. But Ahmedis argue that Ahmed is a messiah and not a prophet. There are several hundred thousand Ahmedis in Pakistan. Human rights groups have accused successive Pakistani governments of discrimination against Ahmedis and their persecution. |