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| Photo: Masaud Sarwar / Al Ufaq |
Source/Credit: Agencies / Affiliates
By Imran Jattala | December 4, 2011
A hate campaign undertaken by the Pakistani radical organization Thafuz-e Khatima-e Nubuwwat (TKN) in Dunyapur, Punjab climaxed here today with miscreants defiling several dozen graves belonging to the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim community.
As many as 32 graves were desecrated during the midnight raid, it was reported by Al Ufaq.
“I saw shattered tomb stones and badly damaged graves today morning as I entered the graveyard” an Ahmadi Muslim member told Al Ufaq.
The hate campaign by TKN is ignored by the local civil society and has been underway in Dunyapur since March 2011, it was reported.
According to Shahbaz Akmal who reports for the Urdu channel APNA News, and spoke to Al Ufaq, Ahmadi Muslims shared the local cemetery with other Muslims that has existed for over 80 years.
“We have never witnessed such barbarism in our town before,” Akmal was reported to have said.
The members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community remained calm, it was reported, and have lodged a police report about the incident.
District Police Office (DPO) Lodhran Agha Muhammad Yusuf confirmed the reports and said that the Dunyapur Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP) had been dispatched to look into the matter of desecrated graveyard, The Express Tribune reported.
DPO said that he would personally look into the matter after the investigation.
Further attempts to reach the police and the local authorities were unsuccessful, Al Ufaq reported.
According to the details provided in a press release issued by Sadr Anjumn Ahmadiyya Pakistan, the Ahmadiyya Muslim portion of the graveyard has formally existed since 1976, where 29 Ahmadi Muslims have been buried.
Since 1984 - when specific anti-Ahmadiyya laws were passed – there have been at least 30 separate incidents of Ahmadi graves desecration.
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| Anti-Ahmadiyya graffiti in Dunyapur |
The law enforcement authorities and the civil society were repeatedly alerted but no actions were initiated to curb the hateful contents and environment.
Few months ago a privately owned school run by the members of the Ahmadiyya Community was forced closed in Dunyapur under threat by the same extremist elements, it was learned.
However, the harassment of the Ahmadi family who invested their life savings to set up the college for general good of their town has continued unabated.
Three months ago, in early September the municipal administration of Lodhran had razed to the ground an under-construction Ahmadi mosque in Jut Wala, a village on the outskirts of Lodhran, at the demand of TKN affiliated extremist clerics.
TKN's nationwide pamphlet campaign inciting murder of Ahmadis has been making rounds in all large and small towns in Pakistan.
In October, Rabia Saleem a female Ahmadi student in her final year of studies was expelled in November from CIIT (COMSATS Institute of Information Technology) in Lahore on allegations of Blasphemy leveled against her by the TKN student group active on campus.
A TKN inspired COMSATS student group had also started a campaign on Facebook to incite violence against Ahmadi student with some suggesting killing of Ahmadis on COMSATS campus.
In late November, an Ahmadi family in Khushab, Punjab was victimized by some local TKN clerics who instigated the expulsion of their16-year-old son from his school. TKN clerics were pressing the police to register blasphemy cases against the student and his father.
The TKN anti-Ahmadiyya campaign knows no borders.
An anti-Ahmadiyya hate campaign by the TKN's UK branch affiliation was recently investigated by several British news channels there and extensively reported in the media.
-- Pakistan: Protectors of the Prophet's dignity turn grave robbers
-- Ahmadiyya Times
-- Imran Jattala - Follow on Twitter: @IJattala
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