A 40-year-old Ahmadi man was reportedly axed to death in Rawalpindi, in what the community has described as a faith-based attack.

Tayyab Ahmad, who was in Rawalpindi visiting his brother, is survived by a widow.

The incident took place at the workplace of the slain man’s brother, who is a businessman and had been receiving threats from religious extremists. According to a spokesperson for the Ahmadi community, as the attacker struck the victim with an axe, he kept saying, “I have warned you Qadianis to leave this place.”

Earlier, extremists had allegedly attacked his brother’s shop by throwing stones at it and had been issuing threats. Ahmad’s brother had recently moved his family out of Rawalpindi due to these threats. The brother, who was present at the site of the incident, survived the attack.

In a statement, the Ahmadi community spokesperson noted that perpetrators of such hate crimes against the community are never brought to justice. “The government must put an end to the hate speech and violence against the community,” the statement added.

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The incident comes amid a rise in attacks on Ahmadi worship places, as well as the desecration of their graves.
Since the start of this year, as many as five worship places of the persecuted religious community have come under attack. In two such incidences, local administration was directly involved in destroying the minarets of a worship place, as per a report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The family of the elderly man told Dissent Today that they have been offering prayers in that worship place for the last 60 years.

“We have been offering prayers in that worship place for the last 60 years, however, on Friday when we reached there to offer the prayers, the mob had already gathered and threatened us that they are going to forcibly occupy this worship place if we go ahead with our prayers,” they told Dissent Today. 

In a video that is being widely circulated on social media, the mob questions the community leader: “What’s your name?”

The family of the community leader told Dissent Today that he initially refused to give his name away but the mob already knew the name.

“They told him to change his name and remove ‘Muhammad’ and they told another Ahmadi, who was there to remove ‘Ahmad’ from his name,” the family added.

According to the family members, the mob was violent but due to an intervention of a few locals, the two Ahmadis managed to escape. However, the mob remained outside the worship place and the community did not offer prayers there.

The police are yet to register a First Information Report (FIR).

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An HRCP-led fact-finding mission pointed out that there is evidence suggesting the civil administration in Gujranwala and Wazirabad were directly involved in destroying the minarets of Ahmadi worship places in December 2022 and January 2023.

The administration claimed they had done so to circumvent the threat of mob violence as objections were raised by members of a local political-religious outfit against the Ahmadi worship places.

However, the report stated, the way local administration handled the issue “fostered growing hostility towards the Ahmadiyya community and increased the vulnerability of Ahmadi residents in the area”.

“While the mission understands that the local bureaucracy, police, and judiciary were successfully intimidated by a religious group, their response displays a pitiful inability to manage law and order while respecting the fundamental rights of the Ahmadiyya community,” the report added.

The HRCP also raised concerns over the district administration’s perception that this kind of persecution is be backed up by law and the Constitution.

The mission also “underscored an alarming uptick in the persecution of members of the Ahmadiyya community in Gujranwala and surrounding areas—specifically, the desecration of their graves, the destruction of minarets at Ahmadi sites of worship and first information reports (FIRs) filed against community members for carrying out ritual animal sacrifice on Eid”.

Declared non-Muslims in Pakistan, the Ahmadis face social and legal discrimination with growing incidents of attacks on their worship places, as well as desecration of their graves reported this year.

Last month, the graves of Ahmadi community members were also desecrated in Faisalabad.
Since the start of this year, as many as five worship places of the persecuted religious community have come under attack. In one such incident, police in Wazirabad destroyed the minarets of a worship place.

News Desk

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