In the valley of the Chenab, where faith should be shelter, fear has taken root. A day after gunmen opened fire on worshippers at the central Ahmadiyya mosque, Bait-ul-Mahdi, in Rabwah—killing one attacker while three fled—previously undisclosed threats against Ahmadi schools have come to light. Together they sketch a chilling truth: in Pakistan, the Ahmadiyya community is being made to live on the edge of annihilation, one prayer, one classroom at a time.
On August 5, 2025, Mujahid Ahmed, principal of Nasir High School in Darul Yaman, received a text message from an individual claiming to be a member of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The demand: 100 million Pakistani rupees. The consequence of refusal: suicide attacks on children and staff. “If you do not comply, we will attack your schools, and the demand will increase after killing the children,” the message warned. It was not a bluff dressed as bravado; it was a blueprint for terror.
Two and a half weeks later, on August 23, the principal filed a police complaint. The texts—sent from an identified number—also threatened to target school offices and other Ahmadi properties. “If you do not comply, you cannot hope for help from any government agency. We will target your schools, offices, and Dar-ul-Ziafat,” the message read. Authorities registered a case under Section 387 of the Pakistan Penal Code (extortion) and Section 25-D of The Telegraph Act, 1885 (misuse of communication services). Yet the complaint stayed out of public view—until now, in the blood-streaked shadow of the October 10 mosque attack during Friday prayers.
Childhood Under Siege
There is a particular cruelty in threatening schools. Mosques are sanctuaries for the soul; schools are sanctuaries for the future. To menace both is to attempt the total erasure of a people’s present and tomorrow. For Ahmadi families, the school run is no longer the beginning of possibility; it is a daily calculation of risk.
Picture a mother in Rabwah packing her child’s bag: textbooks, a pencil case, a lunchbox—and a whispered prayer that the day will end with the same number of chairs at the dinner table. Picture a teacher rehearsing evacuation routes the way others rehearse poetry. Picture a principal deciding which window can be fortified, which gate can be locked faster. This is not an emergency drill; it is an ordinary morning.
The Long Night of the Ahmadis
Ahmadis in Pakistan have long been penned into a legal and social maze where the exit signs are painted over. Their faith is policed, their worship surveilled, their graves desecrated; their very vocabulary—mosque, Muslim, salaam—contested by those who insist on defining their existence from the outside. The cost of that contest has always been human.
When extremists threaten to “increase the demand after killing the children,” they are not merely committing a crime. They are declaring a philosophy: that terror is a lever, and innocent lives are the weight to pull it with. When gunmen storm a mosque in Rabwah and open fire on worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, they are not “sending a message.” They are extinguishing one.
Law on Paper, Silence in Practice
The registration of the case under Section 387 and Section 25-D is a procedural step. It acknowledges that extortion and the misuse of communications have occurred. But law on paper is only as strong as the will that carries it. The threats told the school: “You cannot hope for help from any government agency.” Those words should shame every official who shrugs, every politician who hedges, every figure of authority who treats Ahmadi lives as a subplot.
Security is not a favor; it is a right. To be Ahmadi in Pakistan should not mean negotiating for the right to pray, read, and breathe unmolested. It should not mean begging for permission to exist.
What Courage Looks Like
Courage, here, is quiet and relentless. It is the principal who documents the threats and files a report, knowing publicity might bring more danger and yet knowing silence can be deadlier still. It is the parents who refuse to teach their children that fear is a natural part of life. It is the child who ties shoelaces, shoulders a backpack, and walks into a classroom anyway.
Courage is also the community’s insistence on doing what communities do—praying together, learning together, grieving together. Every Friday prayer resumed is a sentence completed in defiance. Every school day finished is a small, stubborn piece of future reclaimed.
A Prayer, and a Promise
On October 10, 2025, the attackers hoped to turn a congregation into a crime scene and a holy day into a headline. They did not account for what follows violence in people who refuse to surrender their humanity: mourning that turns into mutual care, fear that hardens into resolve, and memory that insists on telling the full story.
Let the story be told with names, dates, and documents—the August 5 threats, the August 23 police report, the October 10 gunfire—and let it also be told with the small details that extremists despise: the chalk dust on a teacher’s sleeve, the hum of children reciting a lesson, the rustle of prayer mats unfolding in a mosque that will not close its doors.
To the child who asked last night if it is safe to go to school: the only honest answer is that safety is a promise we make together and a promise the state must keep. To the parents, teachers, and worshippers in Rabwah: the world owes you more than sympathy. It owes you protection, justice, and the unambiguous recognition of your right to live, believe, and learn without looking over your shoulder.
And to those who traffic in threats and bullets: you have already lost the argument. You are arguing against breath, against books, against prayer. The Ahmadiyya community has survived every era by choosing life, and life has a way of outlasting those who try to cancel it with death.
The message from Rabwah is simple, and it should echo far beyond Pakistan: our children are not your bargaining chips, our schools are not your battlegrounds, and our mosques are not your targets. We will not let you write the ending.