Mob attacks and sets ablaze Hindu temple in Pakistan

A mob in northwestern Pakistan attacked and set ablaze a century-old Hindu temple on Wednesday, officials said, prompting condemnations from the Muslim-majority country’s Hindu community.

Hindus are the main non-Muslim majority in the world that achieved independence from British control in 1947, when the subcontinent was split into Pakistan’s Muslim-majority and India’s Hindu-majority.

Videos made at the scene by locals and shared with Reuters showed a crowd smashing off the walls of the temple building, using stones and sledgehammers, while black smoke from a massive fire blew into the sky.

Local Muslim clerics had coordinated what they told the police would be a peaceful demonstration against the suspected expansion of the temple, situated in the town of Karak city, in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Rahmatullah Wazir, a local police officer.

He added that the clerics heading the demonstration began “provocative speeches” during which the crowd stormed the temple.

“It was a mob, and then nobody was there to stop them from damaging the temple,” said Wazir, adding that much of the structure had been destroyed.

District Police Chief Irfanullah Khan told Reuters that nine people had been detained on suspicion of involvement in the attack.

The temple was first built as a sanctuary in the early 1900s, but the local Hindu community left in 1947 and by 1997 the local Muslims had taken over the building.