Karachi: Members of the Hindu community protested in Karachi on Thursday after a temple was destroyed by supporters of a radical Islamist party, officials said.
Around 500 people took part in the demonstration, which was organised by the Pakistan Hindu Council alongside Provincial and National Assembly lawmakers.
The temple's destruction Wednesday in the northwestern town of Karak came after members of the Hindu community received permission from local authorities to renovate the temple.
Protesters chanted "we want justice" as they marched towards the Supreme Court's Karachi registry.
A member of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh, Mangla Sharma, accused the government of supporting the destruction of the temple that was set on fire.
Read: Angry mob vandalizes Hindu saint's shrine in Pakistan
"We can say there was support of the government, if the government doesn't support them, this incident should not have taken place," Sharma said.
Pakistani police had arrested 24 people in overnight raids in connection with the attack on the temple.
According to witnesses, the mob was led by a local cleric and supporters of Pakistan's radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party.
Pakistan's minister for religious affairs, Noorul Haq Qadri, called the attack on the temple "a conspiracy against sectarian harmony."
He took to Twitter Thursday, saying attacks on places of worship of minority religious groups are not allowed in Islam and "protection of religious freedom of minorities is our religious, constitutional, moral and national responsibility."
The incident comes weeks after the government allowed Hindu residents to build a new temple in Islamabad on the recommendation of a council of clerics.
Although Muslims and Hindus generally live peacefully together in Pakistan, there have been other attacks on Hindu temples in recent years.
Most of Pakistan's minority Hindus migrated to India in 1947 when India was divided by Britain's government.
AP
