Hindus are the largest non-Muslim religious group in Pakistan, gaining independence from British rule in 1947, when the subcontinent split into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India.
Videos made by locals at the scene and shared with Reuters showed a crowd breaking blocks of the temple structure walls with stones and hammers as dark smoke from a large fire rose into the sky.
Local Muslim clerics had staged what they told police would be a peaceful protest against the alleged expansion of the temple, located in a town in Karak district, northwest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Reuters reported. Rahmatullah Wazir, a city police officer.
He added that the clergy leading the protest began “provocative speeches”, after which the crowd attacked the temple.
“It was a crowd and then no one prevented them from damaging the temple,” said Wazir, who added that most of the structure had been damaged.
District police chief Irfanullah Khan told Reuters that nine people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in the attack.
The temple was first built in the early 1900s as a shrine, but the local Hindu community abandoned it in 1947 and by 1997 the site had been taken over by local Muslims.
In 2015, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered its return to the Hindu community and the reconstruction of the shrine, on condition that it is not expanded in the future.
The provincial government spokesman did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
“This is a barbaric way of dealing with minorities. We are shocked and injured … and (the incident has sent) a wave of insecurity to the Hindu community,” Haroon Sarbdyal, local leader of the Hindu community. .
Sarbdyal said that while local Hindus had moved from the village, devotees still traveled there every Thursday to visit the shrine.
Pakistani Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari condemned the incident on Twitter.
Earlier this year, Amnesty International, a rights watchdog, called on the Pakistani authorities to “protect the right to freedom of religion and belief of the country’s besieged Hindu community, including the construction of temples to exercise this right.” “.