A place of worship of the Ahmadiyya community was damaged on the night between July 14 and 15 in Punjab’s Jhelum district.

In a statement, the community accused police of dismantling the minarets at the worship place in Kala Gujran of the Jhelum district. They claimed that the alleged attack was part of a campaign to dismantle minarets.

Similar incidents were also reported earlier this year in the country.

Read: What is it about minarets on Ahmadi places of worship?

A few days ago, it claimed that Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan member Asim Ashfaq Rizvi warned the Jhelum DPO of breaking the minarets if the administration did take action till Muharram 10.

“On July 14, 2023, the DSP called the Ahmadis and said that they should destroy the minarets or we will destroy them,” the statement said and added that the community had made them clear that such a construction was “not illegal at all”.

But the community claims that police on July midnight came to their place of worship and took the mobile phones of the community members present inside it and took them to the Jhelum City Police Station. They accused police of damaging the cameras and dismantling the minarets. “After this action, Ahmadis were released.”

Read: Graves of Ahmadis vandalized in AJK’s Kotli, claims community

Ahmadis lamented that the administration “damaged” their place of worship instead of protecting the community.

“This situation is sad and a clear violation of the rights of the Ahmadiyya community,” it said and reminded that a three-member bench headed by former chief justice Tasadduq Hussain Jilani on June 19, 2014, issued a decision based on guidelines for the protection of places of worship. It called for the formation of a special police force for the protection of places of worship.

In a tweet on Monday, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the persecution of the Ahmadiyya community has become a recurring feature of right-wing politics in Punjab, where members of the community were “harassed and intimidated” as a matter of course and their sites of worship remain “easy targets”.

The state cannot afford to “wilt” in front of far-right groups when it is responsible for ensuring that the most vulnerable are protected, the commission said.

The HRCP demanded that those who threatened the community must be held to account.