Daily Dawn Representatives + Dawn TV Report
Karachi: Police have registered a criminal case against over two dozen members of the Ahmadiyya community and arrested six of them on the complaint of a Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) worker in Surjani Town.
Earlier, when TLP workers gathered outside an Ahmadiyya place of worship in Surjani Town to prevent them from offering ‘Friday prayers’, police took 25 Ahmadis into protective custody.
Officials told Daily Dawn and Dawn TV that an FIR was registered against 19 named members of the community and over a dozen unidentified persons under sections 298 (words etc. intended to hurt religious feelings) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of local TLP official Irfan Gujjar.
DIG West Irfan Ali Baloch told Daily Dawn and Dawn TV that several TLP workers gathered outside a house in Sector 4-A of Surjani Town. They demanded that members of the Ahmadiyya community inside be stopped from offering Friday prayers and using ‘symbols of Islam’.
He said that in view of the law and order situation, the police took 25 Ahmadis into ‘protective custody’.
Meanwhile, Ahmadiyya community spokesperson Aamir Mahmood claimed that the police had taken 25 Ahmadis, including eight children, into custody and taken them to the Khawaja Ajmer Nagri police station.
He said that TLP workers had been gathering outside their place of worship for a long time, demanding their arrest and sealing of the centers.
He said that the members performed religious rituals inside closed buildings and they were concerned about how this ‘crime’ could be committed.
Aamir Mahmood said that detaining him for performing his rituals is a “serious violation of human rights and the Constitution of Pakistan, which allows freedom of religion.”
According to the FIR, the complainant named more than 20 members of the Ahmadiyya community and said that the police had arrested six of them.
Irfan Gujjar said that he came to know that Ahmadis were offering Friday prayers in a house in Yousaf Goth and after monitoring their activities there for over a month, he called TLP leaders and then Madar 15 on Friday to stop them from offering Friday prayers.
Leave a Reply