For Pakistani minority sect, a tentative Eid celebration

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The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, but the state disagrees. A series of attacks, including on three women and children this weekend, has the community downcast. One family quietly celebrates the end of Ramadan.

An Ahmadi child prays at the burial of two sisters killed in Gujranwala

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The Christian Science Monitor
By Taha Siddiqui | July 29, 2014

KARACHI, PAKISTAN -- A handwritten sign hangs on Naeem Sohail's door, wishing passersby Eid Mubarak, a happy end to Ramadan. Underneath, there is a modest notice that henna services are available here.

No one has taken up Mr. Sohail’s daughter on her offer to apply the traditional decorative patterns on the hands of women celebrating Eid. The family wonders if it’s because they are Ahmadis, a minority sect that considers itself Muslim, but that the Pakistani state says is heretical.

Celebrations among Ahmadis – typically quieter than the traditional boisterous visits between Muslim family and friends across town – are even more muted this year. On Sunday, three Admadis, an infant, her young sister, and their grandmother, were killed after a mob attacked and burned their homes in retaliation for a Facebook post by an Ahmadi teen they considered blasphemous.

“We do not go out. Already a few neighbors have asked us if we are [Ahmadis]. So... for Eid, my children, three sons who live with me and the other one, including two daughters who live in the city will probably wish Eid over telephone,” Sohail says, remembering old times when the whole family would meet at their ancestral home.

String of attacks

Sunday's attack began after news spread of that an Ahmadi teen had reportedly posted on his Facebook account a picture of a semi-nude woman atop a holy monument in Mecca. Enraged crowds began protesting, and eventually attacked and damaged homes belonging to members of the Ahmadi community in Gujranwala City, in Punjab Province. The police stood by and watched, according to journalists' eyewitness accounts.

Afterward, all the Ahmadi families left the neighborhood. Reports suggest the teen's Facebook page may have been broken into, and that he might have not been responsible for the picture.


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