Islamic State group claims killing Sikh man in Pakistan's northwest

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Gunmen shot and killed a member of Pakistan’s minority Sikh community in an overnight attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said Sunday.

Gauher Khan, a local officer, said the attack on Manmohan Singh, 35, appeared to be a targeted killing. A police investigation continues, Khan said, into the motive.

Khan said the assailants opened fire at Singh while he was returning home from a suburban area. The assailants fled the scene.

The Islamic State group in a statement claimed responsibility for the killing, saying Singh had been a follower of what it called a “polytheistic” Sikh sect in Peshawar. It also claimed wounding a Sikh in the northwestern city the previous day.

It's the third killing of a Sikh community member this year in Pakistan. Last month, assailants gunned down Sardar Singh in a drive-by shooting in the eastern city of Lahore. In April, gunmen shot and killed Dayal Singh in Peshawar. In the same city in May 2022, gunmen killed two members of Sikh community.

Most Sikhs migrated to neighboring India in 1947, the year British rule of the subcontinent ended and Pakistan was created as a homeland for Muslims in the region. Thousands of Sikhs stayed in Pakistan, where they generally live peacefully. But isolated attacks on minority Sikhs, Christians and members of the Ahmadi sect have continued.