Ahmadi community in Pakistan says one of their members is beaten to death by Islamists

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KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — A mob of Islamists allegedly beat to death a member of Pakistan's minority Ahmadi community Friday while demonstrating near an Ahmadi place of worship in Karachi, a member of the community said. Police said they were investigating the killing.

The victim, identified as Laeeq Cheema, died before he could receive medical treatment at a hospital in the southern port city, said Amir Mahmood, a spokesman for the Ahmadi community. Government Civil Hospital spokesperson Summaiya Tariq confirmed the death of Cheema, saying he had multiple injuries.

Mahmood blamed the attack on a mob of people from the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, or TLP, a radical Islamist party, and said they had rallied outside the Ahmadi place of worship and tried to damage it.

Senior Karachi police official Asad Raza told local media outlets that they had deployed additional police to avoid any unrest in the city ahead of the TLP rally. He said Cheema was killed away from the Ahmadi worship site, and that police were still trying to confirm who attacked him.

Karachi police rescued community members from the worship site after it was surrounded by demonstrators, Mahmood said, but he also complained that police have been slow to take action against TLP protests nationwide.

There are about half a million of Ahmadis in Pakistan, which has a population of 250 million. The Ahmadi religion is an offshoot of Islam, but Pakistan declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974. Ahmadi homes and places of worship are often targeted by Sunni militants who consider them heretical.

Video footage that Mahmood shared with The Associated Press showed crowds chanting anti-Ahmadi slogans outside the worship site. He said TLP supporters had been holding such protests every Friday and that police had not taken any action in previous weeks.

TLP has risen in prominence in recent years by organizing demonstrations, and is known for supporting Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, which carry the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam.