TOBA TEK SINGH: An Ahmadiyya community man was arrested in a Gojra village on Eidul Azha day (Monday) on the charge of “portraying himself as a Muslim and sacrificing a goat like Muslims”.

It happened in Chak 312-JB, Khattowali, and the complainant was Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s district emir Mohsin Raza Naqshbandi.

He claimed in his FIR registered under section 298-C of PPC that he was informed that an Ahmadiyya community man was sacrificing an animal in his home in his village and when he and two witnesses reached there and stopped him from doing so, he (the Ahmadiyya man) claimed that he was a Muslim.

He said the “accused sacrificed the goat and by this act he hurt the sentiments of Muslims and committed an extreme abuse of Islamic rituals by claiming himself a Muslim.”

On his complaint, police immediately arrested the ‘accused’ and took into custody the goat meat and hide, choppers, rope and the chopping block.

Meanwhile, in a press statement issued in Faisalabad , the Jamaat Ahmadiyya spokesperson Amir Mahmood condemned the incident of alleged harassment of his community’s man in Gojra.

He termed it a clear violation of a Supreme Court order which allowed all non-Muslims to practice their religion.

Press Trust of India, quoting Jamaat-i-Ahmadiyya Pakistan official Amir Mahmood, said 36 members of the minority Ahmadi community had been arrested for offering sacrificial animals for slaughter on Eidul Azha in the country, mostly in Punjab.

He blamed the TLP for fanning hatred against Ahmadis and pressuring police to stop members of the minority community from performing their religious rituals.

In Rahim Yar Khan, a member of the Ahmadiyya community escaped from his outhouse with meat of a calf when people informed police about his act of sacrificing the animal.

An FIR was registered by Khanpur police.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2024