Pakistan's PM Sharif speaks with the media during a new conference in New Delhi
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif speaks with the media during a new conference in New Delhi May 27, 2014. Sharif said on Tuesday that top diplomats from Pakistan and India would meet soon to advance peace talks that have moved fitfully because of political tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals. REUTERS/Stringer

A U.S. doctor was killed by gunmen in Pakistan while he was on a visit to a graveyard. The gunmen came on motorcycles and shot several bullets in his body.

Cardiologist Dr Mehdi Ali Qamar, an Ohio resident, went to Pakistan to provide medical care to heart patients for free. He arrived in the Pakistani city of Punjab three days ago. Qamar went to visit a local graveyard on Monday, May 26, when he was shot several times. He died instantly. The image of his bloody lifeless body, meanwhile, has gone viral.

According to CNN, the motive of the murder was unclear. However, National Post reported that religious fanatics killed the 50-year-old doctor as he belonged to the religious minority sect Ahmadi Muslim which is illegal in Pakistan. Qamar used to live in Canada in the early 90s. He had a citizenship for both Canada and the United States. Qamar, also a poet and artist, was accompanied by his 3-year-old son as well as his wife when the gunmen shot him dead. He is reportedly to be the second member of the Ahmadi community to be killed in Pakistan in 2014.

Pakistan has been persecuting Ahmadi community members since 1974 after the military regime of President Muhammad Zia ul Haq did an amendment in the constitution and declared the community as non-Muslim. Thereafter, the community apparently became a victim of a hate campaign. Sixty-year-old Khalil Ahmad was killed in police custody after he had been arrested on charges of blasphemy. He was shot dead in a Sharqpur jail when a man, who came to serve food, shot him dead.

Qamar's body will be taken to Toronto for the burial. "He had no enemies," a spokesman of the community said, "He was a gentle man who enjoyed playing cricket. Our community will continue to provide services to this country. It is this on-going process of hate and discrimination that needs to be stopped in Pakistan."