- EURASIAREVIEW.COM - A la une - 23/Jun 23:51

Pakistan: The Outcast Ahmadis – Analysis

By Sanchita Bhattacharya As reported on June 4, 2025, the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) asked the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Punjab, to prevent the Ahmadi community from observing Islamic rituals on the occasion of Eid ul Azha and to take action against its members if found violating the law that prohibits the Ahmadis from claiming they are Muslims, or from following any rituals or practices associated with Islam. On May 16, 2025, an Ahmadi doctor, Sheikh Mahmood Ahmad, a UK-trained gastroenterologist, was gunned down in the Sargodha District of Punjab. The Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan (JAP) said it suspected that the Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) might be behind the incident. On April 24, 2025, Muhammad Asif, a 19-year-old Ahmadi student in the Kasur District of Punjab, was killed in a targeted attack in Bhulair village. The local community had long reported threats, but nothing was done. On April 18, 2025, a 46-year-old Ahmadi businessman, Laeeq Ahmad Cheema, was lynched to death by around 400 supporters of TLP, who stormed an Ahmadi place of worship to stop religious rituals in Saddar area in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh. On April 9, 2025, the Police demolished the minarets and mihrabs (the niche in a mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca) of two Ahmadi places of worship in Kot Rehmat Khan and Hamrajpura, located in the Nankana Sahib District of Punjab. The demolition reportedly followed pressure from TLP, which had issued an ultimatum to the district administration, demanding that the minarets and mihrabs of Ahmadi places of worship be removed by the 17th of Ramadan or April 15. On March 7, 2025, at least 25 members of the Ahmadi community, including children, were taken into "protective custody" by Police as a mob gathered outside their place of worship in the Surjani Town of Karachi. West Zone Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Irfan Ali Baloch stated, Several workers of TLP gathered outside the Ahmadi place of worship in Surjani Town. They demanded to prevent the Ahmadis from offering Friday prayers and using symbols of Islam… Anticipating a possible law and order situation, police took 25 Ahmadis into protective custody. On March 3, 2025, a 120-year-old place of worship of the Ahmadi community was demolished by the Police under pressure from TLP in the Chatha area of Gujranwala District in the Punjab Province. Police also detained five Ahmadis for protesting the demolition. On January 16, 2025, local administration demolished a historical Ahmadi place of worship, built by Pakistan's first Foreign Minister, Zafarullah Khan, terming it as an 'encroachment', at Daska in the Sialkot District of Punjab Province. The demolition, followed a notice issued two days earlier under the Punjab Local Government Act, claiming that an extension of the structure was illegal as it encroached 13 feet onto a public road. These incidents are not random events; they are the natural consequence of years of demonisation and legalised discrimination against the Ahmadi community. On September 7, 2024, Pakistan marked 50 years since the constitutional amendment that declared the Ahmadis non-Muslims. To commemorate the event, the far-right religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JuI) held a large gathering at Lahore's Minar-e-Pakistan, where several clerics, including Manzoor Mengal, delivered inflammatory speech. Mengal repeatedly incited the audience to kill Qadianis (Ahmadis), declaring, inter alia, …Qadianis are murtad [apostates] and a murtad is Wajibul Qatl [liable to be killed]. They are not kafir [unbelievers]. Qadianis are already unbelievers… I can give money to a Christian. I can give charity to a Jew…rather curse a Jew too… It is the responsibility of the government to kill them [Qadiani]. If not, then every Pathan will kill them. Then every Punjabi will kill them. Sindhis will also kill them. I am appealing to the government, by God, the government cannot stop so many people who have come here… Pass this message on to my sisters, to my mothers as well… That they find out which Qadiani women are present in the houses… According to partial data collated by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), since March 6, 2000, when SATP started compiling data on conflicts in Pakistan, at least 144 Ahmadis have been killed and 128 injured, in 40 incidents of killing (data till June 22, 2025). The latest report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), State of Human Rights in 2024, observes: The Ahmadiyya community encountered continued persecution, reporting nationwide 35 attacks on its places of worship, the desecration of 319 graves, 43 individuals arrested on charges of religious offences and at least six faith-based killings… Additionally, 252 Ahmadiyya graves were desecrated and 19 worship sites vandalized or destroyed… The UK Government's "Country policy and information note: Ahmadis, Pakistan, March 2025", states that, whilst official figures record the Ahmadi population at 162,684, the true population is considered higher, estimated at between 400,000 and 600,000. In conservative Muslim-majority Pakistan, the Ahmadis often complain of harassment. The document further notes: Attacks on Ahmadi places of worship, graves and gravestones occur, including demolition of minarets, graffiti, and arson, at times with police complicity. Between 36 and 44 places of worship, and 109 graves and gravestones, were vandalised in 2023… In 2023, 329 people were accused of blasphemy, 20% (65) of whom were Ahmadi, and 19 new cases were registered against Ahmadis under anti-Ahmadi and blasphemy laws… On September 7, 1974, the Parliament of Pakistan declared Ahmadis 'non-Muslims'. Then, on April 26, 1984, President Zia ul-Haq issued Ordinance XX which amended the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) to criminalise the Ahmadi's claim to be Muslims and their practice of Islam. Ordinance XX inserted sections 298-B and 298-C in the PPC, which bar any Ahmadi from calling themselves Muslim or preaching and propagating their faith. This includes use of any "epithets, descriptions and titles" related to Muslims. Ahmadis appealed Ordinance XX, arguing that it violated the religious freedom guaranteed in Article 20 of the Pakistani Constitution. Nevertheless, in 1993, the Supreme Court upheld the Ordinance's constitutionality. Moreover, the Pakistani state requires Ahmadis to declare themselves as non-Muslims in certain administrative processes. Passport applicants must list their religious affiliation, and those wishing to be listed as Muslims must swear, they believe the Prophet Muhammad is the final prophet and denounce the founder of the Ahmadi movement as a false prophet. When registering to vote Pakistanis must also sign a similar declaration, and the State Department report notes that "many [Ahmadis] were unable to vote because they did not comply with this requirement." The Ahmadi religious movement originated in India in the 19th century. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder, was born in 1839 in the town of Qadian in Punjab, India. In 1889, Ahmad declared that he had received divine revelation authorising him to accept the baya'ah, or allegiance of the faithful. Later, in 1891, he claimed to be the expected mahdi or messiah of the latter days, the "Awaited One" of the monotheist community of religions, and the messiah foretold by the Prophet Mohammed. Almost all mainstream Muslim sects believe that Ahmad proclaimed himself as a prophet, thereby rejecting a fundamental tenet of Islam - Khatm e Nabuwat (literally, the belief in the "finality of prophethood", that is to say, that Prophet Muhammad was the last of the line). Since Ahmad's death in 1908, the Ahmadi community has continued to be led centrally by a spiritual leader. The fifth and current spiritual head, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, resides in the UK. In terms of geographical spread of the Ahmadis within Pakistan, between 60,000 and 70,000 (90-95 per cent) of the population of Rabwah (Chenab Nagar, co...