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Pakistani Police Demolish Mosque of Minority Ahmadi Sect

Associated Press

   MULTAN, PAKISTAN - A spokesman for Pakistan's minority Ahmadis says
   authorities demolished a 70-year-old mosque belonging to the sect in a
   remote village in eastern Punjab province.
   Saleem-ud-Din says district police moved in over the weekend to
   demolish the mudbrick mosque in Hasilpur, a Muslim-majority village
   with only about a dozen Ahmadi residents.
   He says the mosque's dome reserved for the prayer leader was destroyed
   and left in a pile of rubble.
   Din says authorities claimed the mosque was built illegally on
   government land, which he denies. There was no immediate government
   comment.
   There are about half a million of Ahmadis in Pakistan, which has a
   population of 220 million. Pakistan declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in
   1974.
   Ahmadi homes and places of worship are often targeted by Sunni
   militants who consider them heretics.

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