Pakistan: Police order Ahmadiyya community members to remove Islamic symbols from their place of worship following TLP threat

After the call by the radical outfit Tahreel-e-Labbaik, Pakistan (TLP), with a pledge to demolish the Ahmadiyya place of worship in Daska city of Punjab’s Sialkot district after the Friday prayers, a mob of radicalized Muslims, owing allegiance to the outfit, started gathering in front of the building calling for total destruction of the structure.

Sensing violence, the Daska police called the Ahmadiyya community members and the caretaker of the building and asked them to either remove the Islamic symbols in the building themselves or the police would do so as they did not want any communal violence in the city. 

According to the caretaker of the building Mushtaq, the police had given in to the demands of TLP’s call given by the radical outfit’s local leader Momin and thus has violated the Lahore High Court’s order dated 31.08.2023, which protects the architectural structure of Ahmadiyya places of worship built before 1984, the year when ordinance XX of anti-Blasphemy laws came into existence.

In a separate incident of attack on Ahmadiyya Place of Worship, 8 suspected members of TLP attacked broke into the Ahmadiyya worship place situated in Karachi’s Martin road using ladders and destroyed windows, doors and furniture.

Before fleeing the place and arrival of police, the attackers also demolished the remaining two minarets of the building.

Earlier on January 18, the TLP had destroyed two minarets in a midnight attack on the building.