Source: rabwah.net

On a recent Sunday afternoon, a voice in Urdu echoes through a desolate neighborhood of a valley on the outskirts of Kathmandu. We are climbing a four-story building tucked away against green paddy fields. The voice grows louder. At the cramped, top floor apartment, amid a tattered carpet and mattresses, a desktop computer sits beside a rickety table fan. It is playing a grainy video for perhaps the umpteenth time. The video shows a heated debate between an analyst and a television presenter. A Pakistani family is huddled around the computer and watching The Lucman Show at News 1 Channel.

Nepal a Religious Refuge for many Pakistani Ahmadi Muslims

Broadcast originally in 2007, it shows Mubshar Lucman grilling guests about Ahmadiyya community and its history in Pakistan. Downloaded from YouTube, the video shows a picture of mustachioed Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in the background.

This neighborhood is a far cry from the family’s ancestral village in Narowal district in the sun-blasted plains of Punjab.

But Naveed Ahmad, 35, a slender, gregarious man, is forced to call it home.

He is among countless other Ahmadis, declared non-Muslims according to the 1973 constitution of Pakistan, who have fled their homeland and sought refuge across the world: in the United Kingdom, in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia; among others.

“I have wasted my youth. I have been here for nearly 10 years. And, there’s nothing. Neither can we go back to our country nor this country accepts us as citizens,” Naveed said when I visited him. According to Naveed, his troubles began in mid-March 2004.

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