Press Release

Press Release (Rash id Ahmad Chaudhary) Pakistan According to reports, the atrocities against the members of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan continue un-abated. In Sargodha, an Ahmadi scholar, Hafiz Muhammad Amjad Arif, was waylaid and beaten severely by three mullahs. In Hazara, houses of various Ahmadi Muslims were raided amidst Eid-ul-Adhiya festival celebrations to make certain that the Ahmadis are effectively forbidden from the traditional rituals. It may be recalled that last year it was on this same festival when, in the middle of the celebrations, as many as ninety Ahmadis, including children, were arrested from the local Ahmadiyya mosque of Mardan, and the mosque itself was razed to the ground. On the first anniversary of the destruction of this main Ahmadiyya mosque, the mullahs held a meeting in which they passed a resolution that the mosque should not be returned to the Ahmadis; the site should be allotted to them, instead. In Jhang, the main Ahmadiyya mosque was raided by the City Magistrate accompanied by a police party, and posters and charts containing verses from the Holy Quran were removed from the walls and taken away. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community have condemned these violations of basic human rights which have been going on against their Pakistani counterparts for more than three years. They have drawn the attention of world bodies concerned to put pressure on the General Zia regime to put an end to such hostilities. Sargodba (Pakistan) According to a report reaching here, one Mr. Mubarak Ahmad Cheema, . local leader of the “Khuddamul Ahmadiyya” (Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Organization), Sargodha, was about to travel on a bus to undertake a journey when three hired mischief mongers, who were riding motor bikes, forcibly PRESS RELEASE 41 dragged him from the bus. They snatched a book away from him, and alleged that he was trying to preach “Ahmadiyya tenets” to them which is a criminal offence under the anti-Ahmadiyya Ordinance XX of 1984. The trio tried to take him to the police station, by force, which resulted in the tearing of the Ahmadiyya leader’s clothes. Upon request, an eye-witness shopkeeper rescued Mubarak Cheema from the trouble makers. Next day the Ahmadi leader approached the Superintendent of Police, and related the incident expecting that necessary action would be taken against the assailants. Ironically, a few days later the City Magistrate himself, along with a police contingent, raided Mubarak Cheema’s house and arrested him! A charge had been levied against him that he had written Kalima Tayyabah on the mosque from where the police party had earlier removed the Kalima inscription. The FIR (first information report) wrongly stated that Mubarak is the caretaker of Ahmadiyya mosque, and that he was arrested from the mosque. Mubarak Cheema, a well-educated and highly placed citizen in the local community was thus, surprisingly, sent to a cell normally used for condemned prisoners, and all efforts to obtain bail for him proved futile in the Magistrate’s court. As the next alternate, an application for bail was filed in the Session Court, where the two prosecution lawyers vehemently argued that the bail application should be rejected. They argued that the offence committed by the accused was of a grave nature, and was likely to fall under Section 295 – C of the Pakistan Penal Code which carries the penalty of death. They also pressed the Session Judge that before taking any decision, the court should consult the Deputy Commissioner. The defence lawyer, on the other hand, pleaded that his client had committed no offence. He was arrested from his home and he was a respectable citizen. The Session Judge, Mr. Mohammad Abdul Azeem Khan Niazi, agreed with the defence counsel confirming that it was atrocious to arrest a person under such circumstances. The prosecuting lawyer stated that the accused was on bail in a previous case for re-writing the holy Kalima Tayyabah on the mosque which the police had earlier effaced. The Judge, however, remarked that if the accused effaced the holy Kalima, he is an offender. However, if he wrote the Kalima then he had committed no offence. Rather, he had done a righteous act. The Judge was also heard to express his disgust at the shameless practice of effacing the holy Kalima everywhere! The “accused” has been released on bail of seven thousand rupees. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, UK, while condemning the plot hatched by the anti-Ahmadiyya mullah faction in collusion with the regime, against respectable members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, applaud the bold stand taken by the Session Judge in this case. In spite of the highly charged situation created by the anti-Ahmadiyya mullahs, and backed by the government authorities, the judge did not budge at all from fair mindedness and justice.