PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen shot and killed a member of Pakistan’s minority Sikh community in an attack Thursday in the deeply conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. The gunmen fled the scene, according to the police and a community leader.
Nauman Khan, a local police official said it wasn’t clear if the attack on Satnam Singh, 45, was a targeted killing. Singh, a herbalist, had been living in the city for the past 20 years and ran a small clinic selling herbal medicine.
The assailants opened fire at Singh inside the clinic, said Sardar Harpal Singh, a local community leader. He denounced the incident and demanded the arrest of those involved in the killing. The herbalist and the community leader are not related.
The majority of Sikhs migrated to neighboring India in 1947, the year British rule of the subcontinent ended and Pakistan was created as a homeland for Muslims in the region. Thousands of them stayed in Pakistan, where they generally live peacefully. But isolated attacks on minority Sikhs, Christians and members of the Ahmadi sect have continued.
Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
