Two days after 600 Ahmadis in Pakistan were booked by the police, the minarets of their mosque were demolished by the police on 14th July. This comes after the radical Islamist party, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) warned the police that it would attack the Ahmadi mosque at Kala Gujran in Jhelum, Punjab, if they failed to demolish the same.
A government official from Pakistan’s Punjab reportedly said that the leaders of the Ahmadi community were summoned by the police and were told that the law does not allow them to build a place of worship. The police raided the Ahmadi mosque and demolished it on the night of 14th July. The Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan reportedly told PTI that a campaign against the community has been launched by TLP.
Ahmadi leader Amir Mahmood said that TLP leader Asim Ashfaq Rizvi has repeatedly threatened to attack Ahmadi mosques in Jhelum if the police fail to destroy them by Muharram at the end of July. “Instead of protecting the Ahmadis, the police brought down the minarets of the Ahmadis’ place of worship to please the hate-mongers and extremist elements. This situation is unfortunate and a clear violation of the rights of the Ahmadi community,” Mahmood said.
On 13th July, the Pakistani police booked more than 600 people of the Ahmadi community for blasphemy and stopped them from practising their faith. “The members of the Ahmadi community cannot even practice their faith within the four walls of their houses in Pakistan. This is also a gross violation of the Supreme Court’s ruling,” the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan said in a statement.
Several cases were filed against the community on flimsy charges including that of blasphemy. An FIR was lodged against the Ahmadi community on 11th July on grounds of blasphemy for building a mosque in Sindh. Last month, DSP Hafizabad issued a legal notice to all the police stations to ensure that no Ahmadiyya Muslim performs the ritual sacrifice known as Qurbani during the Eid-al-Adha celebrations.
Earlier this year, on 2nd February, an Ahmadi mosque in Pakistan’s Karachi was vandalised right in front of the police which was a mute spectator. On 16th April this year, an Ahmadi mosque in Punjab’s Ghooghiat village was destroyed by a mob. The purported video of the incident has been shared on YouTube.
However, instead of raising the issue of their very own community, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (AMC) body is instead engaged in fighting for the Palestinian cause.
On 7 July 2023, His Holiness highlighted the ongoing oppression of Palestinian Muslims, the latest incident of Quran burning in Sweden and the French riots following the police killing of teenager Nahel Merzouk.
— Press Ahmadiyya (@pressahmadiyya) July 9, 2023
In relation to these incidents, His Holiness said the only way for… pic.twitter.com/62F8I0W086
Notably, Pakistan, for which Ahmadiyya Muslims voted in uniformity in the 1940s, does not recognize Ahmadiyyas as Muslims and bars them from such identification. In the 1970s, Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan were declared non-Muslims and the provisions in the Pakistani Constitution do not allow them to identify as or do anything which allows them to identify as Muslims.
