Around 10 unidentified armed men entered an Ahmadi graveyard in Model Town late Sunday night, took the caretakers and their families hostages on gunpoint and defiled more than a 100 graves in the vicinity, breaking and removing the tombstones.
According to details, the men, who wore masks, entered the graveyard by climbing over the rear wall around 1:45am at night. They tied up the caretakers and their families, including five women and four children, and locked them in a room where they assaulted the males for at least half an hour. Following this, they started desecrating the graves.
In the meantime, one of the caretakers was able to inform the Bait-ul-Noor, an Ahmadi administration office in the locality, about the trespass. The office immediately sent two guards to the venue, one of whom entered the graveyard over the wall. The attackers however captured and assaulted him also, and locked him up with the others.
The other guard, after waiting outside for a while, started aerial firing, which prompted the perpetrators to wind up their activities and escape the scene. The caretakers, who were reluctant in revealing their identities, told Pakistan Today that the assailants beat up their women and children and kept on referring to them as ‘kafirs’ or infidels who ought to be killed for desecrating the Kalima by engraving it on the tombstones.
“We will be blessed with a place in heaven for killing you infidels,” they kept on saying to their hostages according to one of the caretakers.
The unidentified assailants also robbed around Rs 7,000 and three cell phones from the hostages, Pakistan Today learnt.
The caretakers said the police, on being intimated through a call on Police Emergency 15, reached the place after 30 minutes. They said the police was hesitant in entering the vicinity but when one of the Bait-ul-Noor guards went inside and unlocked the room where everyone was detained, the policemen came inside, observed the area for a few minutes and then left. Salim-ud-Din, a spokesperson for the Ahmadi community, told Pakistan Today they could not rationalise the reason behind such attacks.
“We are a peaceful community and will register our protest in a peaceful manner and we hope that we would be allowed to live in peace,” he said. He said the community would take legal action on the trespass, assault and desecration of the graves.
He denied any allegations of disrespecting the Kalima or verses from the Quran. “Our graveyard is walled, covered from all sides and not open to public so that untoward incidents are avoided,” he said. “After all these measures if anyone has a problem, defiling graves is still not the answer,” he said.
The police said they are enquiring into the incident and so far no FIR has been registered.
Model Town Superintendent of Police (SP) Malik Awais told Pakistan Today that an enquiry was underway regarding the incident and he would be in a position to answer all questions with certainty once it concluded.
In July, 2012, Khatm-e-Nabuwat Lawyers Forum had filed an application with the Liaquatabad Police Station for removal of Islamic inscriptions from tombstones at this graveyard. The police started pressurising the Ahmadi community to remove such inscriptions. In October however, Lahore Session Court disposed off the petition.
its v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v bad i think these people are releasing their aggression by doing sins
This incident is so sad. They loot and demolish the houses of people and the house of God and even the graveyards in the name of Islam. From where did these molvies learn this Islam?. That’s why Hadhrat Muhammad sallaLLAHO alaihe wasallam called these so called ulema, “Ulamaao Hum” in a hadith.He very beautifully disassociated himself and his ummah from these Mullahs. May Allah guide the common people to the true islam, and save them from these Molvies. Aamin.
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