An Ahmadi leader and a relative of Pakistan’s first Nobel laureate Abdus Salam was shot dead in Nankana Sahib on Thursday morning, reported Dawn. Malik Saleem Latif was a lawyer by profession and was on his way to a local court with his son when the incident took place. He was the president of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya group.

“Advocate Latif was killed because of his religious beliefs,” Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya spokesperson Saleemuddin told The Express Tribune. This comes only a day after the group released its annual report, in which it said that at least six members of the community had been killed in the country in 2016 alone. The report also blamed the government’s laws and policies for their victimisation.

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“Around 1,700 advertisements were published against the Ahmadiya community in local and national newspapers in 2016,” said Saleemuddin “There is no check on hate mongering and if the situation remains the same then the killing of Ahmadis will also continue.” The police said they had identified the attacker, however, they did not reveal any further details about the investigation.

The members of the minority community have faced persecution in the country for decades, even before modern-day Pakistan was formed in 1947. Salam now lives in the United Kingdom to avoid the discrimination and hate his community faces in Pakistan. Violence against members of the community is common in the country.

The Ahmadiyya movement was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who was born on February 13, 1835, at Qadian, a village in Gurdaspur district. He claimed that he was the promised Messiah, the Imaam Mehdi or the second coming of Jesus Christ, which angered Islamic scholars.

They argued that his claim contradicted the belief in the finality of the prophethood after Muhammad (PBUH), one of the central tenets of Islam. In the census of 1901, the Ahmadiyya community registered itself as a separate sect for the first time. The religious right in the country have called them anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan.