Hindus are the largest non-Muslim religious group in Pakistan, which gained independence from British rule in 1947, when the subcontinent was divided between Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India.
The video, made by locals at the site and shared with Reuters, showed people smashing parts of the temple’s construction walls using stones and sledgehammers, like dark smoke from a large fire in the sky.
He added that the protesting clerics started “provocative speeches”, which led to people attacking the temple.
“It was a mob and then there was no one to stop them from damaging the temple,” the minister said.
District police chief Irfanullah Khan told Reuters that nine people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in the attack.
The temple was first built as a temple in the early 1900s, but was abandoned by the local Hindu community in 1947 and was occupied by local Muslims by 1997.
In 2015, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered it to be handed over to the Hindu community again and the temple was rebuilt on the condition that it would not be expanded in the future.
A provincial government spokesman did not respond to a request for comment by Reuters.
“This is a barbaric way of dealing with minorities. We are traumatized and injured … and (this incident) has sent a wave of insecurity into the Hindu community,” local Hindu leader Haroon Sarbadil said in an interview. Said in the interview. .
Sarbadil said that while the local Hindus have migrated from the village, devotees still go there every Thursday for darshan.
Pakistan’s Human Rights Minister Shirin Mazari has condemned the incident on Twitter.
Earlier this year, Rights Watch Dog Amnesty International called on Pakistani authorities to exercise this right to protect the freedom of religion and belief of the country’s Dalit Hindu community, including the construction of temples.
.
