Pakistan: 3 Ahmadiyya mosques vandalized by Punjab police personnel

Ahmadiyya Times

In their odd attempt to pacify the angry mob, Punjab police personnel themselves defaced the property by erasing Kalima (Islamic faith creed) and Quranic verses from the three Ahmadiyya mosques the police assumed were intended in the mullah action.

Three Ahmadiyya mosques in Sialkot, a town about 80 miles north of Lahore in the Punjab province in Pakistan, were vandalized by the police personnel themselves - not a mob, it is clarified by several sources in Pakistan. The rumors in the social media that an Ahmadiyya mosque was besieged by a large mob in Sialkot were put to rest by Mr. Saleemud Din, the national Ahmadiyya spokesperson in Pakistan. “There has been no mob attack on any Ahmadiyya Bayut Ul Zikar in Sialkot,” Saleem-ud Din wrote through Twitter in social media. An Islamists’ rally organized by Khatima-e Nubuwwat extremists did get started towards the Ahmadiyya locations in Sialkot city but, Mr. Din has confirmed, it was stopped from reaching the intended locations by the local police. In their odd attempt to pacify the angry mob, Punjab police personnel themselves defaced the properties they assumed were intended in the mullah action. Police erased Kalima (Islamic faith creed) and Quranic verses from the three Ahmadiyya mosques, Saleemud Din said. “The Bayut ul Zikar had small decorative minarets on the outer wall and doors that were damaged by the police,” Saleemud Din said. Mr. Saleemud Din says these events are a direct result of “the record number of anti-Ahmadiyya conferences allowed” recently by the authorities to spread anti-Ahmadiyya hatred across Pakistan The conferences and rallies are being convened by Islamists to commemorate the passing of 1974 anti-Ahmadiyya constitutional amendment. Saleemud Din reiterated that the police has a responsibility to protect Ahmadis - not appease the mullahs and lie down in front of their demands and comply. “Breaking few minarets are no means to deter Ahmadis from performing their spiritual duties,” Saleem ud Din wrote angrily in his twitter post. “Let me make it clear that no action what-so-ever can deter our faith & stop us from worshiping our Almighty Allah.”