A mob in northwestern Pakistan attacked and set ablaze a century-old Hindu temple on Wednesday, officials said, prompting condemnations from the Muslim-majority country’s Hindu community. “It was a mob and then nobody was there to stop them from damaging the temple,” Wazir said, adding that most of the structure had been damaged. The temple was first built in the early 1900s as a shrine, but the local Hindu community left in 1947 and by 1997 the site had been taken over by local Muslims. In 2015, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered it be handed back to the Hindu community and the shrine rebuilt, on condition that it would not be expanded in the future. We are shocked and hurt ... and (the incident has) sent a wave of insecurity in Hindu community,” Haroon Sarbdyal, a local leader of the Hindu community, said in an interview.

Source: dna December 30, 2020 20:03 UTC