Six Ahmadi community members arrested in Pakistan after earlier being provided with protective custody

Ahmadi community members arrested by police after TLP activists gather outside their place of worship in Karachi.

Six members of the minority Ahmadi community were arrested by police on Saturday (March 8, 2025) after it earlier provided protective custody to around two dozen of them following threats from a sectarian politico-religious party.

The police registered cases against the Ahmadi community members after taking them into protective custody when Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) activists gathered outside their place of worship in the Surjani town of Karachi to prevent them from offering “Friday prayers”.

“Today, we arrested six people on the complaint of a TLP activist in Surjani,” a senior police official said.

The approximately 500,000-member Ahmadi community in Pakistan is a religious minority which claims itself as Muslim but was officially declared “non-Muslim” in 1974 through an amendment in the constitution.

They have faced prosecution from right-wing religious parties notably in the Punjab province in recent times.

Amir Mahmood, a community spokesperson, said TLP activists had gathered outside their place of worship since Friday afternoon and threatened to tear it down.

DIG West, Irfan Baloch, said the TLP activists demanded the arrest of Ahmadi community leaders and the sealing of their place of worship.