A Canadian cardiologist and member of Islam’s controversial Ahmadi sect was murdered in Pakistan on Monday, the latest example in the troubled country of growing intolerance towards religious minorities.

Mehdi Ali Qamar, a doctor who lived for more than a decade in Columbus, Ohio, arrived in Pakistan’s Punjab province only days before his death, said his brother, Hadi Ali Chaudhary.

On Monday morning, Qamar visited a local cemetery where his father and other family members are buried. Two men on motorcycles drove by and shot him 11 times in front of his wife and young son. There are no immediate suspects, according to local media reports in Pakistan.

Read more on thestar.com:

‘Pakistan’s toughest cop’ killed by bomb

Polio re-emerges amid paranoia in Pakistan

Qamar, who was 51 and who planned to volunteer in Pakistan at the Tahir Heart Institute, attended medical school in Toronto in the early 1990s, said his brother Chaudhary, an imam at an Ahmadi mosque in Vaughan.

“No one will stop this or protect Ahmadi,” Chaudhary said. “In Pakistan, it is the law who are the murderers.”

Saro Khatachadouri, a spokesperson with the Department of Foreign Affairs, said Canadian officials “have received preliminary reports indicating that a Canadian citizen may have died in Pakistan. Canadian consular officials stand ready to provide consular assistance as required.”

Pakistan in recent years has become splintered by sectarian violence. Members of religious minorities such as Christians, and Shia and Ahmadi Muslims are often targeted.

Founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Ahmadi movement immediately found itself at odds with more established Islamic sects such as Sunnis after Ahmad claimed to be a prophet. The sect, whose tenets include tolerance towards other faiths, has about 10 million followers, including 1.5 million in Pakistan.

In 1974, then-prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto’s father, helped pass a constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadi non-Muslims. They are now not allowed to vote or to gather to celebrate Eid.

The BBC reported that when Pakistani Muslims apply for a national identity card or passport, they must sign this oath: “I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad an imposter prophet. And also consider his followers, whether belonging to the Lahori or Qadiani group, to be non-Muslims.”

In 2008, a television evangelist and clerics called for the murder of Ahmadi in Pakistan. Within two days of the program’s broadcast, two Ahmadi were murdered. Two years later, in 2010, 93 Ahmadi were killed when two mosques in Lahore were attacked.

In 2012, Lahore’s bar association barred the sale of fruit juices by Ahmadi-owned companies, Pakistan’s Tribune newspaper reported.

“We are persecuted because of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws,” he said. “That’s the difference between Ahmadi and Shia. We are actually outlawed by the law.”

Chaudhary said his brother Qamar was planning to return to live in Toronto.

“It’s a dangerous country for us,” Chaudhary said of Pakistan. “But he had to go there. Our relatives are there and his in-laws live there.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Chaudhary said he will remember his brother for his kindness.

“He was a nice, smiling person,” Chaudhary said. “He liked to help poor people, and gave them scholarships, and was such a good poet and calligrapher.”

A family spokesman said Qamar’s body will be returned to Canada to be buried in the Vaughan area.

Read more about: