Gunmen kill senior Pakistani military official from Shi’ite minority

MULTAN Pakistan (Reuters) – Gunmen have killed three people, including a senior military official, at a mosque frequented by minority Shi’ite worshippers in the Pakistani city of Sargodha, police said on Monday.

Sectarian strife has been worsening in Pakistan, where Shi’ite Muslims make up about 20 percent of the 180 million population. Sunni Muslim militants frequently attack Shi’ites they see as infidels who deserve to die.

“Brigadier Fazal Zahoor was shot by masked gunmen while taking part in a religious ritual at the mosque,” said police official Farooq Hasnaat, adding the attack took place late on Sunday. “The gunmen arrived on motorbikes and burst into the mosque. They identified the brigadier and shot and killed him, his brother Fazal Subhani and a third man called Mohammad Ayub.” The mosque is located in a military cantonment. Hasnaat said the brigadier had received threats from the banned organization Sipah-e-Sahaba, which says it want to expel Shi’ites from Pakistan.

Read more » Reuters
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0H30C520140908?irpc=932

Social terrorism: religious vendetta against Ahmadis

By Faiza Mirza

Religious persecution of people from Ahmadiyya community is not a new development in Pakistan. Ahmadis have long been marginalised from the time when they were declared non-Muslims in the amendment introduced in 1973’s Constitution. Since then, they have been facing the wrath of many Muslims who have fundamental views and refuse to trade, dine and even sit with them.

Whether it is about banning a certain juice brand, expelling Ahmadi students from universities or failure to recognise the only Pakistani Nobel Laureate, the hatred fuelled by religious clerics knows no boundaries.

Academic institutions remain an arena of conflicting views, hence often turning into another platform for religious fundamentalists to brainwash impressionable minds.

The University of Sargodha, which is in close proximity to Rabwah, is one of a very few universities which houses and educates students from Ahmadiyya community. The university has reportedly been a congenial institute where administration and management support students from different beliefs and schools of thought. However, ubiquity of miscreants, who use religion for their political interests, has contaminated the otherwise pleasant environment.

Pakistan Ahmadi buried body forcibly exhumed from graveyard in Punjab

Pakistan Ahmadi man forcibly exhumed in Lahore
By M Ilyas Khan

Police in Pakistan have forced a family of the Ahmadi sect to exhume the body of a relative because it was buried in a Muslim graveyard.

Officials in the Sargodha district of Punjab province say they took the unusual move after anti-Ahmadi Muslim groups threatened peace in the area.

Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims but a 1984 law barred them from identifying themselves as followers of the faith.

The law also put restrictions on their religious practices.

‘Law and order situation’

Shehzad Waraich, a farmer in the Bhalwal area of Sargodha district, died on 30 October and was buried in a shared graveyard designated by the government.

“The police approached the relatives of Mr Waraich on 31 October and asked them to remove the body from the Muslim graveyard as this could lead to a law and order situation,” Salimuddin, an Ahmadi community spokesman, told the BBC.

“The family complied with the request and exhumed the body. They have now buried it in a different graveyard reserved for the Ahmadis several miles away from the village.”

The police said the family was asked to exhume the body because the burial was “illegal”.

“They buried Mr Waraich in a Muslim graveyard, which is against the law,” Javed Islam, the Sargodha district police chief, told the BBC.

“Members of the Khatm-e-Nabuwat organisation and some local people approached the police and conveyed their objection to the burial. The objection was within the ambit of the law, so we acted accordingly,” he said.

Khatm-e-Nabuwat is an anti-Ahmadi religious organisation that acts as a watchdog on their activities.

Mr Islam said that he was not concerned about the moral aspect of the exhumation of Mr Waraich’s body – his job was to enforce the law.

Ahmadis in Pakistan are often mobbed and lynched by extremist elements who critics say are encouraged by favourable laws.

The Ahmadi spokesman, Salimuddin, said it was the 30th incident since 1984 in which an Ahmadi body has been forcefully exhumed by the administration to satisfy the opponents ….

Read more : BBC