An Ahmadi place of worship in Karachi was vandalised by unknown people on Monday afternoon.

The place of worship on Drigh Road was left with broken minarets and graffiti sprayed on the walls.

A statement from Aamir Mahmood, spokesperson for the Jamaat-e-Ahmaddiya, said that a dozen men entered the building around 3:45 pm on Monday. Mahmood added that the men destroyed the minarets with hammers and put graffiti on the walls.

Mahmood added that this is the 11th attack on an Ahmadi place of worship this year. In January this year, two places of worship in Karachi were attacked and vandalised in a similar way in the span of two weeks.

The statement said that the building attacked on Monday, named Bait ul Mubarik, was in existence since the creation of Pakistan.

Police says the Ahamdis did not file any complaint despite repeated requests

The place of worship falls within boundaries of the Shah Faisal police station, who confirmed the incident happened around 4 pm on Monday. However, the police said that only four to five men were involved in the incident instead of dozen.

Police added that some men were wearing helmets while others had covered their faces with a cloth. They said that the unknown men had climbed to the top of the building using a ladder.

Police also said that the place of worship had built a ‘dome’ despite not being allowed to do so. The men destroyed it and then escaped.

The police said that no complaints had been filed by the community even though the police repeatedly requested them to do so.

However, the community said that it had filed a complaint with the police with complete details of the event. The complaint reiterated the facts of the case about vandalism and graffiti and said that CCTV videos have also been handed over to the police.

It adds that the building has existed since 1948, while the minarets were added in 1955.

The complaint requests that the culprits be apprehended with the help of NADRA.

The issue with minarets

A 1974 constitutional amendment defined who could be called a Muslim and who is a non-Muslim. Anyone who does not believe in the finality of the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon Him) is not a Muslim.

The amendment specifically states that “persons of Qadiani group or the Lahori group (who call themselves ‘Ahmadis’)” were non-Muslims.

Later in 1984, Ordinance XX of 1984 that prohibited Ahmadis from calling their place of worship a “masjid” and preaching their faith.

In an extension of the same law, 1993 Supreme Court judgment said that Ahmadis should not be allowed to use things associated with muslim identity.

Apart from not allowing their places of worship to be called mosques and their call to worship as azan, this also means that Ahmadis cannot use minarets as they are associated with Muslim places of worship, according to one interpretation of the law.

Jamaat Ahamddiya, however, says that minarets are a feature of Asian architecture that are even found on Hindu temples. The other side argues that minarets indicate that many Ahmadi places of worship were actually Muslim mosques that have been appropriated illegally when the new religion was introduced.

“The government has utterly failed to provide security to Ahmadi places of worship in a clear violation of Justice Jilani’s 2014 ruling,” Mahmood told Aaj News earlier this year.

In the ruling, Justice Tassaduq Jilani had issued seven directives to the federal and provincial governments for the protection of religious minorities in Pakistan, ordering the formation of a task force. However, the task force was never formed.