Pakistan: We have let down the Ahmedi community

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

Pakistan is being torn apart by one of the greatest evils known to man: a slow genocide instigated by hate and warped religious ideology. Ratcheting up our attacks against the typically docile Ahmedi community, the latest fatality comes from Chenab Nagar, Punjab, where a renowned heart surgeon, the 50-year-old Dr Mehdi Ali, was gunned down by ‘unknown’ assailants while visiting the cemetery containing graves of his family members. What was his crime? Being a visible part of the Ahmedi community. Dr Mehdi Ali was settled in the US and was on a volunteer visit to Chenab Nagar — also known as Rabwah, the traditional hometown of the Ahmedi community — to help heart patients at a local state-of-the-art hospital he had helped build. He leaves behind his wife and children, forever scarred by the truth: Pakistan is no place for good men.

We are now entering a very dark and fearful point in our history where man is murdered for his beliefs and blasphemy charges abound for every slight. Religious and sectarian rifts have become so deep that right and wrong, and the actual teachings of our peaceful religion have become blurred and meaningless. The hospital in Chenab Nagar, built by the Ahmedi community, is known to be well-equipped and leagues ahead of the government (and many private) hospitals across Pakistan. So much so that reports have indicated that some members of the clergy in the area, usually so hateful of the Ahmedi community, have sought treatment there for themselves and their families while pleading with the hospital’s doctors not to reveal their ‘sin’. Hypocrisy knows no bounds here it seems. This daylight murder of the good doctor comes only days after another Ahmedi was shot dead in a police station, again in Punjab. These attacks are becoming all too frequent and much more sinister. Where deviants would be satiated with death threats and having Ahmedis jailed for the gall to call their houses of worship mosques or greet each other with the typical Islamic greeting, they are now moving on to murder in almost every scenario.

There has to come a time when the government stops dragging its heels on this issue and starts taking affirmative action against this ‘religious’ cleansing. The Ahmedis, despite being declared by the state as non-Muslims, deserve the protection of the state and to have their rights as citizens fully protected. The culprits must be found and punished, not allowed to get away scot-free as they usually do. The blasphemy law, which is often used against the Ahmedi community in false cases, must be amended in the very least to offer safeguards against those who are falsely accused. We cannot just sit back while innocent people die because of a sick ideological mindset. The Ahmedis are hard working, peace-loving citizens; they deserve much better than this.