Ghoghiat, District Sargodha, Punjab; April 2023: The opposition of Ahmadis has recently spiked in this village. In May last year, Islamic inscriptions on 30 tombstones of Ahmadis were removed and Ahmadis were prohibited from offering animal sacrifice at their festival of Eid ul Adha. Moreover, opponents filed applications against the century-old Ahmadiyya mosque in the village. The opponents, with the help of the police, had even posted a board outside the mosque declaring, “This is not a mosque of Muslims, this is a worship place of Qadiani Community” (translation).
Recently on April 16, 2023, an application was filed by an opponent named Khalilur Rahman to SHO Miani Police Station. The complainant said that he was passing by the Qadiani worship place when he overheard the Qadiani Muallim (religious teacher) teaching the Quran to children, while they are forbidden to perform such activities by the Constitution and Shariah (sic). The complainant said that he informed the on-duty police guard, who told the Muallim to stop. Upon this, the Muallim threatened to kill the complainant—he alleged in his complaint. The complainant appears to belong to the group who believe that a lie in support of religion is not only permissible, it is even obligatory.
Afterward, at night after the evening prayer, the opponents came and gathered outside the Ahmadiyya mosque. They demanded that the minarets and niche of the mosque be destroyed. It is pertinent to mention that the said mosque is 118 years old and has stood there long before the promulgation of the anti-Ahmadiyya laws. The police arrived at the scene and the mob turned into a sit-in. Later, they attempted to climb to the rooftop of the mosque using a ladder, but the police stopped them. Around 11:00 pm, the opponents ultimately climbed up the rooftop and demolished the minarets and niche, in the presence of the police.
| The mosque after the attack |
On April 17, 2023, the police registered a case against three Ahmadis under sections 298-C, 506, and 109 of PPC on false accusations of criminal intimidation and threats.
Ahmadis also filed an application to the police against the attack on their mosque and the destruction of its minarets and niche by miscreants. The police registered a case against 23 named and 19 unknown miscreants under sections PPC 295-A, 149, 148, 427, and 295. Five prominent attackers were arrested.
Favoring the attackers, Rana Khalid Mahmood, Magistrate Bhera, kindly accepted the request for bail of the arrested miscreants saying that as the case was not registered by a government official or the police, release on bail was in order. The case had been filed by a common person, so, according to this magistrate, section 295-A was not applicable; all the remaining sections are bailable, anyhow. He then accepted the bail plea of these criminals who had committed the major offense of injuring a place of worship and acting maliciously to outrage the religious feelings of the victims.
The weekly The Friday Times also took notice of the incident (extracts):
Sargodha: Ahmadi Worship Place Desecrated ‘In Police Presence’
An eyewitness says that all this happened in the presence of local police at around 11 pm on Sunday.
A mob desecrated the minarets and the dome of the Ahmadiyya Place of Worship in Ghooghiat, District Sargodha, on Sunday.
On the condition of anonymity, an eyewitness said that all this happened in the presence of local police at around 11 pm. It is pertinent to mention here that this place of worship is approximately 118 years old.
Attacking and demolishing Ahmadiyya worship places by mobs and government officials is a blatant violation of Pakistan’s constitution and Justice Tasadduq Hussain Jilani’s 2014 decision.
The persecution of the Ahmadiyya community has been on the rise in different areas of Pakistan for some time now. The Punjab province has been the center of it, and the extent of these activities is such that the peaceful Ahmadis are not left alone even in the holy month of Ramazan.
A fact-finding mission led by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has underscored an alarming uptick in the persecution of members of the Ahmadiyya community in Gujranwala and surrounding areas—specifically, the desecration of their graves, the destruction of minarets at Ahmadi sites of worship, and first information reports (FIRs) filed against community members for carrying out ritual animal sacrifice on Eid……
Mob besieges Ahmadiyya worship place in Lahore. Police books Ahmadi elders.
Rajgarh, Samanabad, Lahore; April 15-17, 2023: On April 15, around 10:30 pm, a violent mob besieged the local Ahmadiyya prayer center. They hit the gate with rods, shouted anti-Ahmadi slogans and made speeches on loudspeaker. They incited people that Qadianis were preaching there, misleading the people and robbing the End of Prophethood. They demanded that police register criminal case against them. The clerics then staged a sit-in in front of the center.
The police SHO telephoned the Ahmadi administration and asked them to open the lock of the center. They were told that there was no Ahmadi in the center at that time. The clerics and the police then wrapped the outer lock with a cloth.
There is a mosque close to the center. The mullas seem to have plotted the unrest there.
After two days, the police booked four Ahmadis Asad Imran, Ghulam Mustafa Zakria, Abdul Hai and Ahmad on the complaint of Maulvi Abdul Aziz of Aalmi Majlis Khatme Nabuwwat under PPC 298-C with FIR No. 1291, on April 17, 2023 in Police Station Sanda, Lahore.
The plaintiff took the stance that there was an unregistered place of worship of the Qadianis at Shamnagar Chauburji, where the above-mentioned accuseds were illegally preaching Qadiyaniat and worshiping, thereby misleading and hurting the sentiments of innocent Muslims. Therefore, action should be taken against them. The police compliantly registered a case whereby the three Ahmadi elders could be imprisoned for three years — for having done nothing.
This is Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, ruled till recently by men like Usman Buzdar (PTI), Parvez Elahi (PML-Q) and now Mohsin Naqvi (the Interim CM).
