Pakistan: Social Segregation Even After Dead and buried

The Express Tribune

A 70-year-old Ahmadi woman was finally buried last Sunday, a day after a dispute broke over burial in Gojra tehsil of Toba Tek Singh district.

Her son Iqbal Rangha told The Express Tribune that when his family went to the local graveyard to dig up her grave, residents of the village stopped them from burying her there, just as they had stopped another Ahmadi family a week ago from burying a minor girl in the graveyard.

He said Yaqoub Ranja, a Muslim resident, offered his own land. He said when the grave was dug there, some people called the police and claimed that the land was an extension of the graveyard.

“They told us to take the body to Rabwa,insisting they would not let us bury her at anywhere in the area,” Iqbal Ranjha recalled.

He said the police summoned a revenue official to verify the ownership of the land. When Ranjha was found to own the plot, the police allowed them to go ahead.

He said the police also told him to secure the grave. Iqbal said Ahmadis had earlier been forced to cover up minarets of their places of worship. He said they had been burying their dead at the graveyard for decades but now had been stopped from using it. Rana Amjad Javed, a member of the group opposed to the burial, told The Express Tribune a panchayat had decided that Ahmadis should not be allowed to use the graveyard. He said they could take their dead elsewhere, possibly Rabwa. He said it was not “appropriate” to bury non-Muslims close to a graveyard where Muslims were buried. He said the police were favouring Ahmadis. He said the patwari who verified the ownership of the plot was also an Ahmadi. He said his group was trying to resolve the matter amicably but if it was not resolved soon, they would be willing to “embrace martyrdom for this noble cause.”

Gojra Station House Officer Rana Muhammad Yar told The Express Tribune the burial was managed under tight security. He said several people had complained of aggression by Ahmadis but the police had found no illegality. He said no action had been taken against those trying to bar Ahmadis from burying their dead.

Jamaat-i-Ahmadia spokesperson Saleemudin recalled that a group of extremists had recently stopped an Ahmadi family from burying their two-year-old child in the same village graveyard.

He said recurrence of the problem pointed to failure of law enforcement.