Police in Bahawalpur have allegedly destroyed the tombstones installed atop 17 graves belonging to the local Ahmadiyya community.
The community, in a statement released on Friday, claimed that on June 6, 2024, representatives of the community were summoned by the local authorities who conveyed the demands of opponents to the Ahmadiyya community.
The community was told that members of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) had allegedly demanded the local authorities remove tombstones atop the graves of the local Ahmadiyya community located in Basti Shukrani.
The community further said they were being threatened by elements allegedly linked to TLP.
Members of the Ahmadiyya community conveyed the collective stance of the community to the local authorities.
The authorities conveyed that they would carefully remove certain wordings from the tombstones while no sort of damage would be caused to the tombstones.
However, the community claimed that at around midnight on June 12, 2024, a heavy contingent of police went to the graveyard. The authorities then, while violating their promise, desecrated and demolished the tombstones and took the debris away with them.
The community claimed that, in all, the police desecrated around 17 tombstones.
Certain non-Ahmadi locals allegedly informed the community that the police were accompanied by certain clerics and facilitated the destruction of the tombstones.
Earlier in the week, the district administration demolished the minarets installed atop an Ahmadi worship place (which was built in 1970, around a decade and a half before the introduction of the blasphemy laws which penalised Ahmadis) in the Jahman area of Lahore.
The action of the local administration was illegal since last year, the Lahore High Court (LHC) issued an order prohibiting government officials from demolishing religious structures belonging to the Ahmadiyya Community built before 1984.