Minority Ahmadis' worship place attacked in Pakistan's Sindh, ‘hateful’ graffiti drawn on walls

The minarets of a worship place of the minority Ahmadi community were destroyed by unknown men in Pakistan's Sindh province and "hateful" graffiti was drawn on its walls, a spokesperson of the community said on Tuesday.

The incident occurred on Monday in one of Karachi’s most populated areas.

Around a dozen men forcibly entered the worship place on Monday evening, destroyed the minarets with hammers and put “hateful graffiti on the walls", Amir Mahmod, a spokesperson for the community, said.

Noting that this is not the first time Ahmadi worship places have been attacked in Karachi, he said, “Two months back, two of our worship places in Saddar and Martin Quarters areas were also vandalised.”

Asserting that the place of worship on Drigh Road had existed since Pakistan's creation, Mahmod said, "The government has utterly failed to provide security to Ahmadi places of worship.”

“The police had filed FIRs on our complaint, but so far, there has been no progress,” he said.

Senior police official Tariq Nawaz said that the police received a complaint about a worship place of the Ahmadis being vandalised on Drigh Road and were investigating the matter before registering an FIR.

“Initial reports suggest that around four people climbed up and damaged the minarets with hammers,” he said.

The members of the Ahmadi community have faced more persecution and attacks in the Punjab province, where their number is said to be higher than in the rest of Pakistan, according to Mahmod.

He said the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) openly propagated a campaign to destroy the minarets of worship places of the Ahmadis.

Posters and banners by the TLP, calling for the demolition of the minarets at these worship places were openly visible in Punjab province, he said.

Last week, the minarets of an Ahmadi worship place were destroyed in the Jhelum of Punjab province by TLP workers as the police watched on, he said.

Last month, the Ahmadis were banned from holding gatherings, sacrificing animals and celebrating Eid al-Adha in Pakistan.

Ahmadis are usually referred to as Qadianis in Pakistan, which is considered a derogatory term for them.

Pakistan’s Parliament in 1974 declared the Ahmadi community as non-Muslims. A decade later, they were banned from calling themselves Muslims. They are banned from preaching and from travelling to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage.

Although the number of Ahmadis in Pakistan is around a million, unofficial figures put their population much higher.

In Pakistan, around 10 million out of the 220 million population are non-Muslims. The minorities in conservative Muslim-majority Pakistan often complain of harassment by the extremists.

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