MANDI BAHAUDDIN, PAKISTAN — Mirza Safdar Mahmood was on his way home when two men began following him.
It was around 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 2. Near the central Eidgah in Mandi Bahauddin, the men opened fire. Mahmood, 65, was struck by gunfire and died at the scene. His attackers fled.
Mahmood had just closed the vehicle workshop he ran. He was a husband and the father of two sons. Police say he had no known personal enmity.
Now they are investigating what appears to have been a targeted killing.
There is another detail that gives his death a wider significance: Mahmood was an Ahmadi.
In Pakistan, that identity has placed generations of people at the intersection of religious discrimination, legal restrictions and, at times, violence. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim, but Pakistan’s Constitution classifies them as non-Muslims, while criminal-law provisions restrict aspects of their religious expression.
Police have not yet established why Mahmood was killed, or whether his faith was the reason.
But for a community accustomed to living under extraordinary restrictions, the questions surrounding his death are already larger than one shooting.
Who followed Mirza Safdar Mahmood home—and why?
Radio VOIB 