LAHORE, Apr 1: The minority Ahmadi community in Pakistan faced issues in offering Eid prayers as police did not allow them to gather for the ritual due to pressure from Muslim religious extremists.
The Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan (JAP) in a statement on Tuesday said Ahmadis in Lahore were stopped from offering Eid prayers even inside their homes in five areas, including their worship place in Garhi Shahu.
“Extremist groups especially Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) gathered outside the Ahmadi worship places, shouted hateful slogans, and tried to create trouble, following which Ahmadi worship places were illegally sealed,” it said.
The statement said the TLP extremists besieged the Ahmadi worship places in Sheikhupura, Sahiwal and Rawalpindi districts of Punjab, and Karachi city of Sindh, forcing the police to stop them from performing Eid prayers.
The extremists also damaged an Ahmadi worship place and wrote hateful messages on its walls in Karachi’s Azizabad, the statement said.
Police said they sealed off some Ahmadi places of worship during Eid because of “security concerns”.
They said members of a radical Islamic party on Monday gathered outside some Ahmadi worship places and the police were forced to stop them from offering Eid prayers to maintain law and order.
JAP spokesperson Aamir Mehmood strongly condemned the police action.
He criticised the police for not stopping extremist groups from spreading hate but unlawfully stopping the Ahmadis from performing Eid prayers and shutting their worship places.
“It is shameful that peaceful Ahmadis are being stopped from practising their faith. Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan gives every citizen the right to freely practise their religion,” he said, urging the government not to appease the extremist groups.
Mehmood urged Pakistani people and those in power to reject hateful ideas and ensure the human rights of Ahmadis were protected. (PTI)
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