London, UK - Islamabad could do more to protect the religious minority community from extremist attacks, leaders of the Ahmadiyya community said in London.
The Pakistani Taliban was blamed for attacks on the Ahmadiyya religious minority in recent days. Attacks on Ahmadiyya mosques and a hospital in Lahore killed around 100 people last week.
Officials at a hospital in Sindh province said they received death threats in a letter from militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi accusing the hospital of religious discrimination.
"The countdown starts," the letter read.
Members of the Ahmadi community have issued a global appeal in the wake of attacks on the religious group in Pakistan.
Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the spiritual leader of the Ahmadi community, summoned Pakistani delegates to his office in London to express his concerns, the religious group said.
Ahmad said that the recent attacks on religious minorities in Pakistan were the result of mixing religious with political, calling on Islamabad to stand up to all extremists in the country.
He said his community in Pakistan didn't want any special treatment but stressed the need for basic rights.
Human Rights Watch last week called on the Pakistani government specifically to repeal laws discriminating religious minority groups, including laws that call for the death penalty for so-called blasphemous offenses.
Pakistan in a 1974 ruling said the sect was non-Muslim.