There are around fifteen million Ahmadiyya Muslims worldwide, constituting around one percent of the world’s Muslim population. Around four million Ahmadiyya Muslims live in Pakistan.

“Police Itself Resorts to Illegal Violence Against Ahmadis in Pakistan,” by Marco Respinti, Bitter Winter, October 22, 2024:

Despite the numerous denunciations by (mainly) specialist media and human rights activists, the situation of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan is still largely overlooked. This allows the continuation of an unbearable persecution, driven by hatred and denial of religious liberty. In fact, mainline Muslims (whatever this expression really means) accuse Ahmadis of heresy and even consider them non-Muslims. Working as a theological justification, while it is in fact a distortion of theology and religion, this excuse perpetrates repression and crimes, the latest of which took place in early October.

Four Ahmadi mosques have been desecrated and vandalized, their domes and minarets being destroyed, in Pakistani Punjab. The International Human Rights Committee, based in Mitcham, Surrey, England, has gathered information and first-hand testimonies.

These four gratuitous aggressions mark a clear escalation, bringing the suffering of Ahmadis to the next level. They have in fact a peculiar aspect. They were directly committed by the Pakistani police and other law-enforcement agencies. Of course, it is not the first time that the complicity or at least the passivity of law-enforcement has been observed in acts of persecution against the Ahmadis, but this time the patency of the events is so astonishing to let everyone conclude that, in the case of Ahmadis, the Pakistani government may not be the solution because it is indeed the problem.

This is not new as well. Since at least 1984, Ahmadi Muslims are living an ordeal that seems to have no end. However, even the most odious and unscrupulous regime needs to keep some sort of feigned decency when committing crimes. On the contrary, today the Pakistani government knows no shame in openly involving its public structures and agents in vicious acts, weaponizing them against a group of law-abiding and peace-loving citizens.

October, the black month

October was a black month for the Ahmadis in Pakistan, beginning with its day one. On October 1, 2024, the Assistant Commissioner of Sangla Hill, a city at some 90 km west of Lahore, headed a large group of police officers and laborers who dismantled parts of a historic mosque in the village of Murd Chak 45, in the District of Sheikhupura. The vandalic operation started after midnight and continued until around 2:30 am of October 2.

Just two days later, on October 4, another extensive group of police officers, dressed in civil clothes, reached 145/10-R Jahanian of the city of Khanewal, Punjab, Pakistan. A police mobile unit and a motorcycle unit were also deployed, patrolling the area. Direct witnesses report that, cloaked in darkness, the police officers in disguise and in uniform repeatedly checked the surrounding places with searchlights to control whether anyone was filming any video. Then the law-enforcement agents acted, demolishing the minarets of the local mosque. They even covered the Kalima, or the formula of the Islamic creed, with cement as it was visible on the walls. Later that day, during a filmed press conference, the president of the Jahanian branch of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan islamist political party openly thanked public officials for this crime….