Police stopped members of Pakistan’s minority Ahmadi community from slaughtering animals on Eid-u-Azha after Muslim clerics complained that the ritual of animal sacrifice “is an Islamic injunction whereas Ahmadis are non-Muslims”.
Ahmadiyya community could not “sacrifice the animals” on Eid days in Krishan Nagar (old Lahore) and Sabzazar areas after local Muslim clerics made an announcement in mosques that the Ahmadis were following Muslim rituals.
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya spokesperson Saleemuddin, said all of this was too much for the Ahmadiyya community in Lahore. He said that the police, instead of providing security to the citizens, was meddling in sectarian issues and supporting hardliners.
Pakistan’s Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim but were declared non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment in
1974.
A decade later, they were barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.
Some 1.5 million Ahmadis live across the country.
Earlier too, Ahmadis have faced police action in Lahore.
On September 22, Punjab Police demolished the domes of two mosques of the minority sect in central Punjab province.
They also whitewashed Quranic verses painted on the mosques in Sialkot district, Ahmadi leaders alleged.
Earlier, police had demolished domes and removed plaques from graves of Ahmadis in Lahore, Kharian and Hafizabad districts at the “request” of Muslim clerics.
The silence of Punjab Government in respect of continuous persecution against Ahmadis is seriously questionable. This is totally inhuman acts by them. No steps have been taken against this.