The Ahmadiyya community has accused Punjab police of desecrating 45 tombstones in their graveyard in Premkot in Hafizabad district over the weekend saying it was done on an "unethical demand" of the opponents.

In a series of tweets shared by the minority community's press section it said: "The illegal act taken by the @DHafizabad police against the Ahmadiyya Community is not only an act of violation of Human Rights, but also it is an act that has further dimmed the face of our beloved country Pakistan in the eyes of the international community."

It added the graveyard was there since 1974.

"The persecution carried out against the Ahmaddiya Community in Pakistan is not only limited to those who are alive, but the Ahmadis that have passed away are also not safe in their graves," read the tweet.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a statement on Monday expressed concern over the recent attack on the minority community’s graveyard, saying “such acts are becoming almost routine, leaving members of the Ahmadiyaa community as beleaguered in death as they are in life”.

According to the HRCP statement, a local resident “objected to the community’s use of holy verses on its tombstones”. “The desecration of graves is an affront to human dignity and must not be permitted,” read the HRCP tweet.

It urged the authorities to “counter and punish” all such acts, if the “government is sincere in its bid to make Pakistan a more inclusive society”.

Social media users condemned the recent act against the minority community calling it violation of basic human rights and Islamic values. They also urged government to take action against the perpetrators.

This was not the first incident of persecution against this community. In 2012 unidentified armed miscreants were reported to have demolished 120 gravestones in their graveyard in Model Town, Lahore, reported Dawn.

The aforementioned was the third incident, according to the Jamaat-i-Ahmadiya Pakistan spokesman Saleemuddin as some armed men had targeted two graveyards in Hafizabad and Jaranawala in the same manner.