Pakistan authorities demolish minarets of worship place of Ahmadi community in Punjab

Lahore: Pakistani authorities on Wednesday demolished the minarets of a 54-year-old worship place of the minority Ahmadi community in Punjab province, an official of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan said.

A dozen police personnel under the pressure of radical Islamist party - Tehreek-e-Labbiak Pakistan (TLP) - were seen demolishing the minarets of the Ahmadi worship place in Lahore's Jahman Burki area.

Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan official Amir Mahmood told PTI on Wednesday that Ahmadis continue facing the never-ending persecution in the country as the latest act is the desecration of the minarets of the Ahmadi worship place at Jahman, Lahore.

"The demolition action was carried out by a dozen policemen in uniform and four in civil dress in early hours of Wednesday," he said, adding that the acts of atrocities from the law & order agencies clearly reflects that they have no respect at all for the orders issued by the Lahore High Court that Ahmadi worship places built before 1984 needs no alteration as these are legal and hence should not be altered or razed down.

He said the Ahmadi worship place was constructed in 1970 and has been under threat since last year from radical Islamists.

Mahmood said that last year at least 42 worship places of Ahmadis in Pakistan came under attack.

The Ahmadi community in Pakistan has often come under attack for their religious practice.

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.

Most Ahmadi worship places have come under attack by the TLP activists while in other incidents police on the pressure of religious extremists demolished minarets, and arches and removed sacred writings.

The TLP says that Ahmadi worship places are similar to that of Muslim mosques because they have minarets.

In a landmark decision of Supreme Court's Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani in 2014 that a Special Task Force should be made for the protection of the worship places, but police instead of protecting the worship places, are appeasing the radical elements.