Peshawar, Mar 14 (IANS): The Hindu community of Pakistan has decided to pardon the accused persons involved in the vandalisation of a temple last December in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Karak district, the media reported on Sunday.

"The community would provide aid and employ efforts to secure release of the accused from the prison in the light of the recommendations of a jirga," The Express Tribune quoted Pakistan Hindu Council Chairman Ramesh Kumar as saying at a press conference in Peshawar on Saturday.

On December 30, 2020, an unruly crowd set fire to the Samadhi of Shri Paramhans Ji Maharaj located in Karak district's Teri area after more than a thousand people led by some local elders of a religious party held a protest and demanded the removal of the temple, originally built before 1920.

In January, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had announced reconstruction of the temple, as well as a crackdown against the attackers.

Last month, the Supreme Court directed the provincial government to start the temple's immediate rebuilding.

Addressing the presser on Saturday, Kumar said the incident shocked the community across the world and frightened other minorities of the country, as such incidents were almost non-existent in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa until the recent past.

This was the second time that the shrine had been attacked.

It was demolished in 1997 and then rebuilt in 2015 as per the orders of the Supreme Court.