Pakistan: Ahmadi man barred from burying child in public graveyard

A man from the minority Ahmadi community was barred from burying his two-year-old daughter in a graveyard in Pakistan's Punjab province by a group of a Muslims.

The daughter of Waheed Ahmad, a resident of Toba Tek Singh district, died yesterday. When Ahmad, his relatives and members of the Ahmadi community took the body for burial, a group of extremists stopped them from entering the graveyard in Kathowali, saying "only Muslims" could be interred there. A police contingent reached the area and held negotiation with both groups, leaders of the minority community said. As the group of extremists refused to show any laxity, senior police officers requested the Ahmadis to bury the child at some other place. Finally, the Ahmadis agreed to bury the girl in a piece of land located some distance away from the graveyard. It was also decided that Ahmadis would bury their dead at this place in future, the community leaders said. 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.