Former Ahmadi Air Force Official Killed in Attock

File Photo. Rizwan Tabassum—AFP

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, which occurred while Latif Aalam Butt was on his way home.

Gunmen in Attock have shot dead a former Air Force official who was a member of the country’s Ahmadi minority, police said on Thursday, bringing to seven the number of people killed in violence against the persecuted community this year.

“Latif Aalam Butt, a well-known Ahmadi was killed outside his house in Kamra, district Attock. He was returning home from his stationery store, when unknown assailants repeatedly fired at him,” a spokesman for the community, Saleem-ud-Din said.

Local police also confirmed the incident, adding that Butt was 62. It was not immediately clear what role he had served in the Air Force.

“The victim’s son filed an application here at the police station today,” said local police official Qasim Ali. “According to his son’s account, the victim owned a stationery shop in Saddar market and was returning home from his shop during the incident.”

Butt’s neighbor reported the incident and he was pronounced dead upon arrival at the local hospital, Ali quoted the son as saying.

Ahmadis are one of the most persecuted minority groups in Pakistan. They are frequently attacked, accused of blasphemy and subjected to discrimination in education and the workplace. They are also banned from going on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Gunmen shot dead an Ahmadi doctor in Mirpur Khas last month. In July, an angry mob torched an Ahmadi neighborhood in Gujranwala, killing a woman and two girls after a local Ahmadi boy was accused of blasphemy. The worst attack in recent times came in 2010 when an assault on Ahmadi mosques in Lahore killed nearly 100 people.