Police demolish minarets of Ahmadi worship places in Pakistan's Punjab province

Lahore, Apr 11 (PTI) Police in Pakistan demolished raided two Ahmadi worship places and demolished their minarets in the country's Punjab province, an organisation representing the minority community said on Friday.
     Both worship places are located in the Nankana Sahib district, some 80 km from Lahore. 
     According to the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan (JAP), Punjab police personnel raided both worship places on Thursday night and demolished the minarets and mehrabs under pressure from a radical Islamist party.
     "Extremists group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) had issued an ultimatum to the local administration, demanding the demolition of the Admadi worship places in Sangla Hill, district Nankana Sahib," it said in a statement.
     In response, a meeting was held between local Ahmadi representatives and Assistant Commissioner Sangla Hill Zaheer Ahmed along with police officer Ijaz Ahmed Dogar, during which the officials urged the Ahmadi community to voluntarily remove the architectural features — minarets and mehrabs — themselves.
     The Ahmadi community leaders refused, stating that they would neither demolish the structures themselves nor allow anyone else to do so. They said if the administration intended to proceed, they should provide a written legal order from a court of law, it said.
     However, the police raided both worship places and demolished them at Hamraj Pura and Kot Rehmat Khan. 
     "No written order from the court of law was shown while demolishing the structures," it said. 
     JAP spokesperson Aamir Mehmood strongly condemned the demolition of the Ahmadi worship places, saying it is deeply regrettable that to appease an extremist group, the police have illegally demolished the minarets and mehrabs of two Ahmadi places of worship. 
     "Under the guise of religious sentiments, extremist elements are intensifying their persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan, while the authorities have utterly failed to provide them protection," he said.
     Although Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, Pakistan’s Parliament in 1974 declared the community as non-Muslims. A decade later, they were not just banned from calling themselves Muslims but were also barred from practising aspects of Islam.
     Under the law, the Ahmadis cannot construct or display any symbol that identifies them as Muslims such as building minarets or domes on mosques or publicly writing verses from the Quran.
     However, the Lahore High Court ruled that places of worship built prior to a particular ordinance issued in 1984 are legal and hence should not be altered or razed down.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)