Second Killing in One Week Signals Escalation in Anti-Ahmadi Violence

(Kasur, Pakistan) – A 19-year-old Ahmadi man was shot dead in Bhulair, District Kasur, on 24 April 2025, less than a week after an Ahmadi man was lynched outside a mosque in Karachi, marking the second targeted killing of a member of the community within a week.

Muhammad Asif was returning home on a motorcycle with another Ahmadi youth at about 10.45 pm when armed attackers ambushed them close to their homes, according to local reports.

The attackers opened fire, striking Asif in the back. The bullet exited through his shoulder. Asnan Ahmad was shot in the leg. The assailants fled while firing into the air.

Rescue 1122 transported both men to hospital. Asif died from severe blood loss. He was 19 years old and is survived by his parents and two sisters.

Local Ahmadi residents said the killing followed two years of sustained threats and intimidation linked to hostility toward the community’s place of worship in Bhulair. They said extremist groups had run a campaign against the local Ahmadi mosque, while community members faced repeated harassment, public threats, and violent attacks.

Residents reported that Ahmadi homes had previously come under gunfire, that community members had been blocked and threatened in public spaces, and that efforts had been made to isolate them socially and economically. At least two earlier firing incidents damaged Ahmadi homes in the area. In a separate recent incident, another Ahmadi man was severely beaten.

The killing in Bhulair came six days after Laiq Ahmad Cheema was killed in Karachi on 18 April, when a mob affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan surrounded Ahmadiyya Hall during Friday prayers and attacked him nearby while police failed to intervene.

The two killings followed months of arrests, criminal cases, mosque closures, and mob attacks targeting Ahmadi Friday worship across Pakistan, raising concern over a sharp escalation from criminalisation and harassment to deadly violence.