District Sialkot; January 24, 2024: Musaywala cemetery is allotted by the Auqaf Department to Ahmadis. There are a total of 101 graves in the cemetery, of which the police destroyed 65 gravestones.
On January 24, four policemen from Sadar Daska Police Station came to this cemetery. They started breaking the gravestones without contacting the local Ahmadiyya administration. When Ahmadis came to know of it, they reached the spot and questioned the proceedings. They were told that SHO Daska had given the order. At this, the local Ahmadiyya president spoke to the SHO, who called him to the police station. Three members of the Ahmadiyya delegation went there. The SHO told them that the Assistant Commissioner Daska had ordered this operation.
After the defiling action in Musaywala, the police went to Bharoke cemetery in the afternoon. There are 25 Ahmadiyya graves here; tombstones of ten of these were broken up by the police, and the other five were blackened with ink. Ahmadis have been given a separate place in one corner of this joint cemetery.
The Friday Times published the following report on this incident:
Dozens of Tombstones Desecrated at Two Ahmadiyya Graveyards in Punjab
January 25, 2024
The Punjab district administration, along with the police, allegedly desecrated dozens of tombstones at two graveyards belonging to the Ahmadiyya community.
Community members said that police in Daska desecrated dozens of epitaphs at an Ahmadiyya graveyard.
They said the graveyard, containing some 101 graves, had been established on land allotted to the community by the Punjab government. Of these graves, 75 had tombstones.
At around 10am on Wednesday, January 24, several police officers entered the graveyard and destroyed the tombstones on around 65 graves.
When locals asked under what authority the police were acting, the officials said that they had received orders to do so from the Daska Assistant Commissioner.
The community claimed that the assistant commissioner allegedly has a history of persecuting the Ahmadiyya community.
In a similar but separate incident on Wednesday, the Punjab Police desecrated another Ahmadiyya graveyard in Bharoke.
Videos showed police officers destroying tombstones and covering the epitaphs with black ink.
“This is a condemnable and horrifying incident that can never be justified. It is time for the state to clarify what their policy on the desecration of Ahmadiyya graveyards is. The government must clarify under which laws did the assistant commissioner issue these orders,” a community representative said.
The representative went on to ask that if the police are involved in such incidents, to whom should citizens from the Ahmadiyya community turn to for the assurance of their constitutional rights?
The community urged that such actions with official sanction give a poor name to the reputation and standing of Pakistan in the global community.
