23 Ahmadis arrested for offering Friday prayers in Pakistan’s Punjab

Pakistan police officials. File
| Photo Credit: AP

As many as 23 members of minority Ahmadi community were arrested in Punjab province of Pakistan for offering ‘Friday prayers,’ prohibited for them under law.

The police received a call that 27 Ahmadis were offering juma (Friday) prayers at their place of worship at Daska, Sialkot, some 100 kms from Lahore.

‘Ahmadis’ prayer leader Arshad Sahi was giving Friday sermon and was reading Islamic verses and other Ahmadis were listening to him, police officer Muhammad Tanzeel told PTI on Saturday.

“As local Muslims’ sentiments were hurt, police registered an FIR against those 27 Ahmadis under section 298 C of Pakistan Penal Code,” Tanzeel said and added that 23 of them were arrested.

Section 298 C criminalizes Ahmadis who refer to themselves as Muslim.

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.

Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan (JAP) lambasted the police action against innocent Ahmadi men and children. “A group of Ahmadis had gathered for worship within private premises in Daska as per routine. Shortly after, religious extremists assembled outside and began chanting provocative slogans,” it said.

Radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) is reportedly behind the police action against Ahmadis.

In response, the Ahmadis called the police. However, instead of ensuring their safety, the police took 23 Ahmadis, including children aged 11 and 14, into custody and transferred them to City Police Station, Daska.

Subsequently, JAP said, the religious extremists gathered outside the police station, chanting slogans and demanding the registration of cases against the detained Ahmadis.

“Under their pressure, the police registered a case and presented 23 Ahmadis before a magistrate, who then sent them to Sialkot Central Jail on judicial remand,” it added.

JAP spokesperson Aamir Mahmood strongly condemned the rising hate campaign against Ahmadis and the state authorities’ continued subjugation to extremist pressure.

The persecution of Ahmadis has been ongoing for a long time, but the situation has now escalated to the extent that even worship within private premises is being denied, he said.

Under the law, the Ahmadis cannot construct or display 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.