Killing marks further faith-based violence in a district with a history of targeted attacks on Ahmadi Muslims
On the evening of 2 September, Mirza Safdar Mahmood, a 65-year-old Ahmadi Muslim and an office-holder of the local Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Mandi Bahauddin, Punjab, was shot dead near Kot Ahmad Shah. He was travelling from his workshop to an Ahmadi Muslim mosque at the time of the attack.
Mr Mahmood was gunned down by unknown assailants. The location of the attack falls within the jurisdiction of Thana City, Mandi Bahauddin.
Mr Mahmood ran a vehicle repair workshop in the area and was well known as a peaceful man with no personal enmities. He had no involvement in any local dispute, and no motive other than his faith has been identified.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has called on the Pakistani authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation and to bring those responsible before the courts.
Mandi Bahauddin has a documented history of lethal violence against Ahmadi Muslims. On 8 June 2024, two Ahmadi Muslims, Mr Ghulam Sarwar, aged 62, and Mr Rahat Ahmad Bajwa, aged 30, were shot dead in separate attacks in Saadullahpur in the same district by a teenage madrassa student who confessed to acting on religious grounds. Those killings followed public threats issued by clerics of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and directives from the Lahore High Court Bar Association urging police action against Ahmadi Muslims observing the Muslim festival of Eid.
This killing comes amid continuing violence against Ahmadi Muslims in 2026. On 5 June 2026, an armed attacker on a motorcycle opened fire on Ahmadi Muslim security volunteers outside the Bait-ul-Aqsa Mosque in Rabwah, critically injuring three young men, the second such shooting in Rabwah within eight months.
The targeting of an elderly man on his way to worship illustrates the extent to which Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan are denied the most fundamental of rights — the right to life — solely on account of their faith.
Source: Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK.