In February, nearly 50 graves of belonging to the Ahmadi community were allegedly desecrated by the local police and Maulanas for using Islamic symbols on gravestones.
On July 30, PML-Q leader Malik Ilyas Awan wrote to the deputy commissioner of Khushab, a district in the Punjab province of Pakistan, urging him to evict the people of the minority Islamic sect of Ahmadis from the district
The suspect reportedly confessed to the police that he had been ordered to carry out the killing by Muhammad because the accused had belonged to the Ahmadiyya faith.