

Taliban militants who attacked a Mosque of the minority Ahmadiyya community last week in Pakistan’s Punjab province have been arrested and arms, suicide jackets were seized from them, police said.

Four terrorists had attacked ‘Baitul Salat Mosque’, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Taunsa Sharif, some 350 kilometres from Lahore, on July 11, Dera Ghazi Khan district police officer Ghulam Mubashar Maikin told reporters.

Dera Ghazi Khan DPO Ghulam Mubashar Maikin

During the attack on the Mosque a policeman deployed there was also shot, while the terrorists fled the spot when other security guards returned the fire, Maikin said.

He said a special team was constituted to arrest the militants.

Mubashir told reporters that Hanif and Khalid were arrested on Monday. He revealed that the suspects were associated with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al-Qaeda. Mubashir said the men were associated with the subgroup Al-Farooq that had previously carried out attacks in Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh and Attock.

He said police had seized arms including pistols, Kalashnikov rifles and suicide jackets from them. Mubashir said police had also seized hate literature, armament manuals and material on ways of conducting attacks and executing suicide bombings from the men.

Raids are underway to arrest the accomplices of the terrorists, Maikin said.

Regarded by orthodox Muslims as heretical,

Ahmadiyya Muslims are not allowed to refer to their places of worship as mosques or to publicly quote from the Quran – acts punishable by imprisonment of up to three years.

Pakistan’s constitution was amended 40 years ago to declare Ahmadiyya to be non-Muslims.