The suspects desecrated four grave headstones and inscribed anti-Ahmadi slurs on them. These included the term Qadiani: a derogatory slur employed for members of the community. The incident transpired in Premkot, Hafizabad on November 22. It came to light after, according to the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya.
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya spokesperson Aamir Mehmood said the incident had occurred at the same graveyard where Punjab Police had reportedly desecrated 45 graves of community members earlier in February. He said the "heart-wrenching" incident was representative of rising intolerance in Pakistan. Forget living Ahmadis, even our dead are not spared, he said.
Pakistan’s tiny Ahmadi community is routinely subjected to discrimination which often enjoys legal and state sanction.
An Ahmadi man was booked by Karachi police under the nation’s Ahmadiyya-specific penal provisions for using ‘Syed’ as a prefix earlier in the same month. A copy of the FIR is available with The Friday Times — Naya Daur. The suspect, a lawyer, had been representing other Ahmadis before a court. The man had submitted some documents in connection with the case. The documents, it has been claimed, featured Islamic terms. His name featured alongside.
Leading Pakistani Urdu Daily Jang ran a Quetta jail ward story with a bizarre anti-Ahmadi headline earlier in September. “The Muslim world must act in concert to annihilate Qadianiyat*,” the story was headlined as. The story carried under, on the other hand, is on Balochistan Ombudsman Muhammad Nazar visit to Bolan Medical Complex Hospital. Nazar, who visited the medical facility to inspect sites for the establishment of both: a temporary and permanent jail ward, is no where quoted as having made the anti-Ahmadi remarks. Nowhere does the story feature anything on the minority.
A school in Punjab’s Attock district expelled four Ahmadi students over their confession earlier in September. Tahir Khan**, a relative of the students, said they had been expelled for simply being Ahmadi. He said a class fellow of one of the students had been harassing one of the students for some time. The students, Khan said, were expelled after some parents prevailed on school principal Kulsoom Awan.
*Qadiyaniat is a derogatory slur employed for the beliefs espoused by the minority Ahmadiyya community.
**Name changed to protect identity.