Islamabad, Pakistan - Members of the Ahmedi sect have complained of violence, official harassment and social ostracisation in Pakistan's Punjab province at the hands of Tablighi Jamaat and other hardline Islamist bodies.
A report carried by Daily Times Saturday claimed nine such cases reported in Rahim Yar Khan, one in Nawabshah, two in Rabwa and one in Jehlum. Two Ahmedis were ostracised in a bicycle market in Rahim Yar Khan because of a Tablighi Jamaat campaign against them.
In another incident in the same district, clerics of Sehjah village spread rumours about Ahmedis forcibly taking Muslims to Rabwa and brainwashing them with their 'dogma', the report added.
The clerics have also demanded dismantling Ahmedi mosques in the area, the report said, adding that the situation in the village had become tense.
Extremists in the district also told Ahmedis to remove the name Muhammad from their names or be punished. Clerics also passed an edict to punish Muslims for maintaining contact with Ahmedis, the newspaper reported.
In another incident in Rahim Yar Khan, hooligans published the picture of the founder of the Ahmedi sect along with abuses on the back of the print, the report claimed said. 'People openly hold conferences in the area abusing Ahmedis,' it alleged.
If a police officer decided a case in favour of an Ahmedi, he or she was considered an Ahmedi, said the report. 'Ahmedis in Rahim Yar Khan have decreased the number of community and religious programmes. They have also decreased the number of mosques.'
Having their religious headquarters at Kadian, Gurdaspur district in India, the Ahmadi sect was declared non-Muslim by the government of Z.A. Bhutto in the 1970s after a violent campaign.
The sect has produced many eminent Pakistanis, among them soldiers and scholars, including first foreign minister Sir Zafarullah Khan and the only Nobel laureate Abdus Salam.