Police arrest 6 Ahmadis in Lahore

Badami Bagh, Lahore; August 2023:

Mr. Muhammad Mubashar and his two brothers are running a small factory here that produces shoe soles. Around 20 workers currently work in the factory. For some time, the mullas are inciting the workers and the neighbors against the Ahmadis.

On August 1, 2023, the mullas gathered and went to the factory and told the owners to denounce their Ahmadiyya belief. They threatened and badmouthed them before leaving and got a case registered against them with the police. The police registered a case Nr. 1783 against two Ahmadis, Muhammad Mubashar and his son Musharraf Ahmad, on August 1, 2023, in Badami Bagh Police Station, Lahore under PPC 298-C for allegedly propagating their belief.

On August 15, a Sessions Court approved interim pre-arrest bail of the two accused, pending a confirmation hearing on August 22.

Three brothers of Mr. Mubashar, Wajahat Ahmad Qamar, Shafeeq Adil, Nasir Ahmad, his son Mudassar Ahmad, accompanied by two other Ahmadis Sheraz Ahmad and Umar Ahmad Bajwa went to the shoe factory on August 18 to get some of the belongings and documents from there. When they reached the factory, the opponents gathered in a mob, created a tumultuous situation, and called the police. The factory was neither sealed nor the police had forbidden anyone to visit the premises.

The police arrested the six Ahmadis present at the scene and transferred them to Badami Bagh police station. They later booked them in a supplementary of the afore-mentioned case and sent them to Camp Jail Lahore on judicial remand.

The TLP fervently campaigned against the accused Ahmadis and called their hoodlums to protest on August 22, 2023, thereby pressurizing the authorities to get their bail denied. Pertaining to the aggressive and hostile situation which could easily turn into an unbecoming event, Mr. Muhammad Mubashar and his son Musharaf Ahmad could not appear in court and Additional Sessions Judge Abdul Qudoos dismissed their bails for non-prosecution.
A poster of the above-mentioned TLP campaign is shown and translated below:

This was most wrongful of the authorities to do that. The Jaranwala tragedy had occurred only three days before, and the country was hurt to the core by the Mulla’s mischief. And, the police in the provincial capital yielded again to the same group of mullas and committed a serious wrong against members of a marginalized small community.
The media and the foreign human rights elements took note of the incident and mentioned it in reports and dispatches.

We quote here a very relevant and sagacious comment made in the prestigious Dawn in its editorial on August 23, 2023:

….But, unless the root causes that give rise to such extremist violence are addressed on a thorough and sustained basis, nothing will change. Our minority communities will continue to live on a knife-edge, not knowing when a misspoken word, a festering resentment or some manufactured pretext will be used against them to bring a murderous mob to their doorstep. The first order of business must be to track down the perpetrators of the Jaranwala outrage and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. No one must harbour delusions about there being any mitigating factors whatsoever behind faith-based violence, no exceptions to the rule. All minorities deserve the protection of the law; every Pakistani has the right to freedom of religion. But this is the ‘easier’ part of what is required if there are to be no more Jaranwalas. Changing society’s triumphalist mindset — the outcome of decades of state-sanctioned indulgence of ultra-right pressure groups to achieve political ends — is a more arduous, multifaceted task. Only the state is in a position to undo the grievous harm its tunnel vision has caused. But, one must ask, will it?