PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistani police have arrested at least 31 people in night raids after a Hindu temple was set on fire and demolished by a mob led by hundreds of supporters of a radical Islamist party, officials said Thursday.
Meanwhile, dozens of Hindus gathered in the southern port city of Karachi to demand the rebuilding of their place of worship.
The destruction of the temple on Wednesday in Karak, a town in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also provoked condemnation of human rights activists and minority leaders of Pakistan’s Hindu community.
Local police said they held 31 people overnight and that raids and more raids were underway on Thursday to arrest radical cleric Maulana Shareef and other individuals who took part or provoked the crowd to demolish the temple.
The attack took place after members of the Hindu community obtained permission from the local authorities to renovate the temple. According to police and witnesses, the crowd was led by Shareef and supporters of the radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party in Pakistan.
Furious at 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 had received assurances from the government that their temple would be rebuilt and 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 condolences. He said Khan assured him that all steps will be taken to ensure the protection of minorities and their places of worship.
Kumar said Pakistan’s Supreme Court had asked authorities for a report on the attack, which also damaged a shrine next to the temple. “We are very sad, our hearts are broken,” he said.
Kumar said the same temple was damaged in 1997 and local clergy linked to Wednesday’s attack had also previously incited Muslims. He alleged that Shareef, the local cleric who led the attack, had fled with armed men in tow and that the authorities had ordered troops to capture them.
Earlier, Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Minister Noorul Haq Qadri called the attack on the temple “a conspiracy against sectarian harmony.” He took to Twitter on Thursday and said that attacks on places of worship by minority religious groups are not allowed in Islam and that “protecting the religious freedom of minorities 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 council of clergy.
While Muslims and Hindus generally live together peacefully in Pakistan, there have been other attacks on Hindu temples in recent years. Most of the 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.