Source: Friday Times via Wasim.
| 41 11 | |
 |
|
On 25 August, 2012 former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani attended the Khatm-e-Nabuwat Conference in Golra in Islamabad. Talking to reporters after the conference, the former prime minister said the mission of Pir Mehar Ali Shah, the patron saint of Golra, came to its fruition in 1974. It was a reference to the excommunication of Ahmadis by the Parliament. The community was declared nonMuslim through a constitutional amendment by the Pakistan People’s Party government in 1974. The PPP views the amendment as a feather in its cap and many of its first rank leaders are known to proudly state that their party did Islam a favour.
 |
|
 Kalima written on the tombstone of an Ahmadi grave is erased with black paint |
|
 |
Things evidently were not always like this for Ahmadis. Having supported the All India Muslim League in the 1940s, Ahmadis – being an educated and enterprising community – contributed significantly to the development of the new state. There was always opposition to them but the state was forthright in putting down disturbances as it did in 1953.
The Munir Report is an early example of state institutions fairly carrying out their responsibilities undeterred by religious extremism.
But 1974 was a different story. The 2nd Amendment to the 1973 constitution, most legal scholars agree, introduced sectarian partisanship into the constitutional and legal framework which was further cemented in 1984 through the infamous Ordinance XX, which seeks to criminalise Ahmadis’ self identification as Muslims.
Inconvenient facts – that the author of the Lahore Resolution was an Ahmadi or that Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate is an Ahmadi – are swept under the carpet |
The constitutional amendment had created no fetters on Ahmadis’ self identification and the subsequent law sought to give the constitutional amendment teeth. The said law survived a constitutional challenge under Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan, with the judiciary ruling in Zaheeruddin v the State that it was but natural for Muslims to get offended at the sight of an Ahmadi posing as a Muslim.
Since the introduction of the said law, Ahmadis have been at the receiving end of what is called an unparalleled persecution in the modern era. Hardly a week goes by without some incident somewhere in which Ahmadis are harassed, persecuted and even murdered.
This past Eid, in the E Sector of Rawalpindi’s Satellite Town, the Police stopped Ahmadis from offering Eid prayers at their place of worship called Eiwan-e-Tauheed. Only days earlier, Hafizabad police raided an Ahmadi cemetery in Mangat Ucha village and desecrated the tombstones by erasing the Kalima from the graves.
|
|
 |
|
|
On the independence day, police in Kot Abdul Malik entered the home of an Ahmadi citizen and besides desecrating the Quranic verses at his house, they also removed the his father’s name “Muhammad Ali”. For good measure, the police also ransacked his shop to ensure compliance with Ordinance XX of 1984. Earlier on in the month, a jeweler in Sargodha was arrested for displaying the verse “Oh ye people of faith, always tell the truth”. The said Quranic verse was also desecrated by the Police.
Ahmadi places of worship are routinely ransacked and vandalized not just by agitators but by the police and state law enforcement agencies as in the case of an Ahmadi place of worship in Kharian last month.