PESHAWAR, Oct 16: Amnesty International has voiced fears that perpetrators of the Oct 7 attack on a place of worship in a village near Mandi Bahauddin may go unpunished and that such incidents would continue until the local authorities take immediate measures to protect the Ahmadi community.

In a press statement issued here, the international human rights watchdog stated that the continued violence against the community had again been illustrated in the attack. Eight people lost their lives and another 18 were injured in the attack.

Police investigations of previous targeted killings of members of the community, Amnesty said, had been slow or had not taken place at all “in many cases, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice”, the human rights group said.

Amnesty criticized the government for consistently failing to investigate attacks and killings of members of religious minorities and not discouraging human rights abuses against such groups.

The right to freedom of religion, as laid down in the constitution and in international human rights law, must be made a reality for all religious minorities in Pakistan, it said.

Over the years, Amnesty International has been informed of numerous targeted killings, usually carried out with impunity. In some cases, the victims themselves were subjected to criminal charges, Amnesty said in the statement.

The organisation recalled another killing that took place in October 2000, when eight people were murdered in the village of Ghatialian in Sialkot district.

In Oct 2000, gunmen opened fire on people who had assembled at a place of worship. Five men who witnessed the attack and reported the incident to the police, along with 21 others, were arrested, for what Amnesty believes are false charges.