Nearly 75 graves and minarets of two worship places belonging to the Ahmadi minority community have been demolished by police and radical Islamists in Pakistan's Punjab province, a member of an organisation representing the minority community said on Sunday.
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan officer Amir Mahmood told PTI, "Police under the pressure of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) desecrated 74 graves of Ahmadis by destroying their tombstones in Daska city of Sialkot district of Punjab, some 100kms from Lahore."
Tension still gripped Daska as the TLP threatened to raze the minarets of a historic worship place of the Ahmadi community. The worship place, located in the old Daska city, was built before the Partition by Sir Zafarullah Khan, a member of the Pakistan Movement and the first foreign minister of the independent nation.
The TLP also demanded the demolition of the gravestones of Ahmadis graveyard in the old city.
"The authorities giving in to the pressure of TLP made sure that no Ahmadi was near to the graveyard and destroyed the tombstones of 74 graves," Mahmood said and apprehended either the police or TLP activists might demolish the minarets of Ahmadi worship places of the area built before partition.
In the other two separate incidents, minarets of Ahmadi worship places were destroyed by TLP and police in the Sheikhupura and Narang Mandi areas of Punjab.
Since January 2023 there have been 34 incidents of the desecration/demolition of the Minarets and Arches of the Ahmadi worship places across the country mostly in Punjab either by police of radical Islamists.
Published - September 24, 2023 11:06 pm IST
