Hindus are the largest non-Muslim religious group in Pakistan, gaining independence from British rule in 1947 when the subcontinent was divided into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India in India.
Videos shot on-site by locals and shared with Reuters showed a crowd breaking apart blocks of the temple’s walls with stones and sledgehammers, as dark smoke from a large fire spread into the air.
Local Muslim clerics had staged a peaceful protest against the alleged extension of the temple, located in a town in Karak district, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Rahmatullah Wazir, a police officer in the city, told Reuters.
He added that clergy leading the protest began “provocative speeches,” after which the crowd attacked the temple.
“It was a crowd and then there was no one there to prevent them from damaging the temple,” Wazir said, adding that most of the building was damaged.
District Police Chief Irfanullah Khan told Reuters nine people had been arrested on suspicion of participating in the attack.
The temple was first built in the early 20th century as a shrine, but the local Hindu community left in 1947 and by 1997 the site had been taken over by local Muslims.
In 2015, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered it returned to the Hindu community and the shrine to be rebuilt, provided it would not be expanded in the future.
The provincial government spokesman did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
“This is a barbaric way of dealing with minorities. We have been shocked and hurt … and (the incident has) created a wave of uncertainty in the Hindu community,” Haroon Sarbdyal, a local Hindu community leader, said in a statement. interview.
Sarbdyal said that while the local Hindus had moved out of the village, devotees still traveled there every Thursday to visit the shrine.
Pakistan’s Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari denounced the incident on Twitter.
Earlier this year, rights watchdog Amnesty International called on Pakistani authorities to “protect the right to freedom of religion and belief for the country’s beleaguered Hindu community, including the construction of temples to exercise that right.”