PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistani police arrested at least 31 people in night attacks after a Hindu temple was set on fire and demolished by a crowd led by hundreds of supporters of a radical Islamic party, officials said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, dozens of Hindus have gathered in the southern port city of Karachi to demand the reconstruction of their place of worship.
The destruction of the temple on Wednesday in Karak, a city in the northwest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, also attracted the condemnation of human rights activists and leaders of Pakistan’s minority Hindu community.
Local police said they arrested 31 people overnight and Thursday’s raids and more raids were underway to arrest radical cleric Maulana Shareef and other individuals who participated or caused the crowd to demolish the temple.
The attack came after members of the Hindu community received permission from local authorities to renovate the temple. According to police and witnesses, the crowd was led by Shareef and supporters of Pakistan’s radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party,
Angered by the attack, about 100 members of the Hindu community gathered in Karachi. Among them was Ramesh Kumar, a member of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.
Kumar, also a Hindu leader, told protesters that he received assurances from the government that his temple would be rebuilt and that those responsible for the attack would be arrested and punished.
Kumar said he received a call from Prime Minister Imran Khan and Khan expressed his solidarity. He said Khan assured him that all measures would be taken to ensure the protection of minorities and their places of worship.
Kumar said Pakistan’s Supreme Court sought a report from the authorities on the attack, which also damaged a shrine located near the temple. “We are very sad, our hearts are broken,” he said.
Kumar said the same temple was damaged in 1997 and local clerics linked to Wednesday’s attack had also previously incited Muslims. He said Shareef, the local cleric who led the attack, had fled with armed men and authorities had ordered troops to capture them.
Previously, Pakistan’s minister for religious affairs, Noorul Haq Qadri, called the attack on the temple “a conspiracy against sectarian harmony”. He used Twitter on Thursday, saying that attacks on places of worship of minority religious groups are not allowed in Islam and “the protection of minority religious freedom is our religious, constitutional, moral and national responsibility”.
The incident comes weeks after the government allowed Hindu residents to build a new temple in Islamabad on the recommendation of a clergy council.
Although Muslims and Hindus generally live peacefully together in Pakistan, there have been other attacks on Hindu temples in recent years. Most minority Hindus from Pakistan migrated to India in 1947, when India was divided by the British government.
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Farooq reported from Karachi, Pakistan.