Around 100 graves belonging to Ahmadis desecrated in Pakistan

Around 100 graves belonging to the minority Ahmadi community of Pakistan have been desecrated in Punjab province, police said on Thursday. This latest incidents take the number of Ahmadi graves desecrated to over 250 in this year across the country.

Radical Islamist party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), is suspected of demolishing the gravestones of Ahmadi graves two days ago in Khushab district, some 250 kms from Lahore, Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan spokesperson Aamir Mahmood said.

The Mithha Tuwana police station in the Khushab district has launched investigation into the matter on the complaint of local Ahmadis.

“Religious extremists demolished gravestones of around 100 Ahmadi graves in the graveyard located in Rhoda, district Khushab. When some members of the Ahmadi community visited the said graveyard, they found all the gravestones belonging to Ahmadi graves desecrated.

“It is noteworthy that some individuals affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Labbaik, Pakistan (TLP) were involved in spreading hatred and inciting violence against the local Ahmadi residents,” Mahmood said.

He also accused some police officials of pressuring the local Ahmadis for some time to demolish these gravestones themselves. “However, the Ahmadi community clearly informed the local authorities that they would not do so,” he said. The local Ahmadi residents have submitted an application to the District Police Officer (DPO) Khushab for legal action against the culprits, he added. Mahmood said that in this year alone some 269 Ahmadi graves have been desecrated in 11 different cities across Pakistan. “Last year, some 319 Ahmadi graves were desecrated in 21 different areas. Such heinous acts are defaming Pakistan. It is regrettable that despite dozens of incidents of desecration of Ahmadi graves, the authorities concerned have failed to provide justice to the victims,” he said and demanded that the higher authorities bring the culprits to justice according to the law.

A video of a TLP cleric Maulvi Zia Mustafa Shah is also doing rounds on social media in which he is openly inciting the people against Ahmadis while calling for the destruction of the Ahmadi graves in Khushab.

In Pakistan, most Ahmadi worship places have come under attack by the TLP activists or in some incidents, police – acting under the pressure of religious extremists — demolished minarets, arches, and removed sacred writings.

Although Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, Pakistan’s Parliament in 1974 declared the community as non-Muslims. A decade later, they were not just banned from calling themselves Muslims but were also barred from practising aspects of Islam.

These include constructing or displaying any symbol that identifies them as Muslims such as building minarets or domes on mosques, or publicly writing verses from the Quran.

However, there also is a Lahore High Court ruling that states the places of worship built prior to a particular ordinance issued in 1984 are legal and hence should not be altered or razed down.