Ahmadi worship place in Pakistan's Punjab demolished by extremists: officials

Radical Islamists in Pakistan attacked and demolished an over 100-year-old worship place of the minority Ahmadi community in the Punjab province.

Radical Islamists in Pakistan allegedly attacked and demolished an over 100-year-old worship place of the minority Ahmadi community in the Punjab province, the police said on Monday, Apri 17, 2023.

The incident occurred on Sunday, April 16, 2023, at the 118-year-old Ahmadi worship place in the Sargodha district of the province.

"A good number of workers of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) on Sunday gathered outside the worship place of the Ahmadi community in Ghooghiat in Sargodha district, some 200 kilometres from Lahore," a police official told PTI on Monday.

"They chanted slogans against Ahmadis, venting out their anger for building minarets at their worship place," he added.

According to the TLP, the Ahmadi worship place was built like a mosque, the official said. Members of the minority community present had to scale walls to save their lives, the official said.

The miscreants destroyed the 118-year-old worship place of Ahmadis, Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Punjab official Amir Mahmood told PTI.

The Pakistani government does not consider Ahmadis to be Muslims, and the Ahmadis are not allowed to call themselves Muslims in Pakistan by a law passed in 1974.