In the small village of Piro Chak in District Sialkot, mourners gathered in September to lay 55-year-old Qudsia Tabassum to rest. Her family had already endured two years of disputes over the right to use the local cemetery. This time, they hoped the authorities’ assurances would hold.
Instead, a crowd formed along the funeral route. Slogans were shouted. Roads were blocked. A motorcycle was set ablaze. The burial of one woman—an act that should have been quiet and dignified—became another battlefield.
Her story is just one thread in a much larger tapestry of fear and humiliation. A new 60-page quarterly report, covering July to September 2025, documents one of the bleakest recent periods for Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya community. Compiled from verified field investigations, police records, and community testimonies, it describes not isolated flare-ups, but what it calls a “sustained and institutionalised campaign” against one of the country’s most vulnerable religious minorities.
A community under siege: the numbers behind the fear
Behind every statistic is a home, a family, a memory. Yet the numbers themselves are staggering:
- 6 Ahmadi places of worship were attacked, desecrated, or vandalised in just three months.
- 5 arson attacks set property and places of worship alight.
- 11 physical assaults were recorded, many targeting individuals for their faith.
- 18 graves were desecrated—final resting places attacked simply because the deceased were Ahmadi.
- 1 family was formally denied the right to bury their loved one.
- At least 40 new FIRs were registered under Pakistan’s anti-Ahmadi and blasphemy laws.
- 12 Ahmadis remained behind bars as prisoners of conscience, punished not for any proven crime, but for who they are and how they worship.
Taken together, these are not random spikes in hostility. The report shows violence and state repression converging and reinforcing each other—mobs on the streets and laws in the courts, working in tandem.
When mobs rule, and the state watches: Punjab’s descent into open attacks
Nowhere was this more visible than in Punjab, where two major mob attacks unfolded within weeks, both marked by the presence of law enforcement—and the absence of effective protection.
Ralioke, Sialkot – 11 July
For weeks, clerics had agitated against the architectural design of the local Ahmadi place of worship in Ralioke, District Sialkot. The tension was not a secret. Authorities knew. Nothing meaningful was done.
On 11 July, a mob surrounded the building. Cameras were smashed. Structural features were targeted for demolition. Police were present—but the crowd escalated anyway. Bottles were thrown. Then came live fire from within the mob, injuring three police officers.
Only after bullets were fired did the police respond in kind and arrest several attackers. For Ahmadis in the area, the message was chilling: even forewarning and police presence did not translate into protection.
Kartarpur, Faisalabad – 14 August
A month later, on 14 August, the fear turned into a nightmare on a far larger scale in Kartarpur, District Faisalabad. What began as a TLP-led Independence Day rally morphed into a coordinated attack by nearly 300 people.
- Two Ahmadi places of worship were stormed.
- One of them was set on fire.
- Several Ahmadis were beaten; two suffered severe head injuries.
- Nearby homes were ransacked, and religious items were destroyed.
Afterwards, police registered two terrorism-related FIRs, naming 47 individuals and 250–300 unknown assailants, and 25 people were arrested. But for Ahmadis, this accountability came after the fact.
The report concludes that these attacks reveal a dual failure: the “growing boldness of anti-Ahmadi mobs” and the inability—or unwillingness—of the security apparatus to prevent violence before it explodes.
When the state becomes the attacker: demolitions, bans, and night raids
The report goes further than describing mob violence. It documents instances where the state itself—through police and local administrations—directly targeted Ahmadi religious spaces.
- In Nankana Sahib, police destroyed the minarets of two Ahmadi places of worship.
- There were no court orders.
- No written instructions.
- Just officers arriving and tearing down religious structures that had stood peacefully.
- In Bahawalnagar, a night raid unfolded like a scene designed to instil terror:
- Power to the neighbourhood was cut.
- Mobile phones were confiscated.
- In the darkness of a 2 a.m. operation, minarets were demolished on a building constructed in 1980, long before the introduction of anti-Ahmadi laws.
- In Hyderabad, the repression took a different form:
- The police enforced a ban on Ahmadi worship following clerical petitions.
- Community leaders were forced to sign pledges not to pray or preach.
- On Fridays, officers were physically deployed to block prayers.
The report lists other cases where police sealed places of worship, locked worshippers inside, or filed criminal cases simply because Ahmadis offered Friday prayers at home.
Its conclusion is stark:
“The state is not a neutral actor. Increasingly, police and local administrations carry out or facilitate actions that would be unlawful under Pakistan’s own constitutional framework.”
For ordinary Ahmadis, this means there is no clear line between mob and state. The same uniforms that should protect them are often present at, or actively executing, their humiliation.
The cruelty of denying the dead their dignity: Piro Chak, Sialkot
Few things expose the depth of hatred like disputes over where the dead may lie. In Piro Chak, District Sialkot, a dispute over access to a cemetery has dragged on since 2022. At least six families have already been forced to bury loved ones elsewhere due to clerical pressure.
Between 21 and 24 September, this dispute flared again during the funeral of Qudsia Tabassum, aged 55.
- Ahmadis were denied burial rights, despite earlier administrative promises.
- A TLP mob gathered along the funeral route, shouting slogans and blocking roads.
- Clashes followed, and property—including a motorcycle—was set ablaze.
Eventually, officials allowed burial—not in the contested cemetery, but in a distant Ahmadi cemetery, and only under police supervision.
For the family, grief was compounded by shame and fear. The report treats this not as an isolated tragedy but as part of a systematic effort to strip Ahmadis of even the most basic religious and human dignity.
Terror over three days: Sheikhupura’s rolling intimidation
In District Sheikhupura, a disturbing three-day sequence between 27 and 29 September shows how harassment is layered, methodical, and coordinated.
- In Kalsian, TLP held an all-night rally filled with anti-Ahmadi speeches. Police watched, but did not stop it.
- The next day, a 17-year-old Ahmadi youth was beaten after he refused to disclose where Friday prayers were being held. A teenager, assaulted for protecting the privacy of his community’s worship.
- The morning after, in Kalia Noria, two men scaled an Ahmadi place of worship and removed copies of the Qur’an.
- Instead of pursuing the perpetrators, opponents pressured police to register a case against Ahmadis themselves.
The report describes these events as a “coordinated pattern of pressure”—clerics stoking hatred, mobs enforcing it on the streets, and administrative inaction (or complicity) ensuring that fear sinks deep into daily life.
Rabwah: Hate rallies protected, victims silenced
If there is a symbolic heart of Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya community, it is Rabwah. Yet even here—in what should feel like home—Ahmadis are not allowed to gather freely.
On 6 and 7 September, police permitted two days of massive anti-Ahmadi rallies in Rabwah, even as Ahmadis themselves remained banned from holding religious gatherings.
- An Eid Milad-un-Nabi procession turned into an openly anti-Ahmadi rally.
- Speakers used virulent hate speech, calling to “end the domination of Qadianis in Rabwah.”
- The next day, the International Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Conference drew hundreds, including prominent clerics and political figures.
- Ahmadis were called “traitors”.
- Participants vowed violent resistance to any reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
The report underlines the hypocrisy:
- Ahmadis are barred from peaceful religious assembly.
- Groups openly advocating violence against them are given police protection and organisational space.
This “selective enforcement” sends a chilling signal: who is allowed to occupy public space, who may speak, and who must remain silent is determined not by law, but by prejudice.
Law as a weapon: FIRs, courts, and prisoners of conscience
Beyond the mobs and the demolitions lies a quieter, but equally devastating, front: the legal system.
Between July and September, 40 new FIRs were filed against Ahmadis under Pakistan’s blasphemy and anti-Ahmadi laws. The accusations often appear designed less to punish crimes than to criminalise existence:
- In Gujranwala, a case was initiated for distributing food on Ashura.
- In Kot Mirza Jan, FIRs followed Ahmadis praying in private homes.
- In Nankana Sahib, cases were linked to alleged “Islamic symbols” on signboards.
The report tracks ongoing cases as well, including a five-year trial in Toba Tek Singh that finally ended in acquittal—after years of fear, stigma, and uncertainty for the accused.
At the time of reporting, 12 Ahmadis are identified as prisoners of conscience, held for their beliefs or peaceful religious practice. One case, that of Shiraz Ahmad, is particularly stark:
- He has spent over four and a half years in prison.
- What began as cybercrime charges was gradually escalated to Section 295-C—Pakistan’s most severe blasphemy provision.
Through cases like his, the report illustrates how law is not merely misapplied; it is deliberately weaponised. The threat is not just the trial or the sentence, but the years of incarceration, social isolation, and danger inside and outside prison walls.
A system, not a series of accidents
Across all these incidents—from arson in Kartarpur to night raids in Bahawalnagar, from burial disputes in Piro Chak to hate rallies in Rabwah—the report finds the same underlying pattern. It identifies three major trends:
- Mob violence is increasing in frequency and scale, escalating from local disputes into large, organised attacks.
- State institutions, including police, are increasingly directly involved in demolitions, arrests, harassment, bans on worship, and even in enforcing the will of extremist groups.
- Legal persecution runs alongside physical violence, with dozens of new cases filed and long-running prosecutions maintained to keep communities constantly under threat.
The report concludes that:
“Violence, administrative interference, and legal discrimination have become permanent features of the state’s treatment of Ahmadis.”
For Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya community, this quarter was not an aberration; it was a concentrated snapshot of their everyday reality.
What is at stake
Behind every entry in this report is a person who went to sleep afraid, a family that hid its religious books, a child who watched their place of worship stripped of minarets in the dead of night.
It is the fear of praying in your own home.
The humiliation of being told you cannot bury your mother in the village where she lived her entire life.
The knowledge that even if the mob does not reach you, the law might.
The quarter between July and September 2025 does more than measure attacks and FIRs. It exposes a system that tells a whole community:
You do not belong.
You will not be safe.
Your faith will be policed, your spaces will be destroyed, and your dead will not rest in peace.
Documenting these abuses does not immediately end them. But it does something vital: it makes them visible, undeniable, part of the historical record. For a persecuted community, being seen—and believed—is itself a form of resistance.
And for everyone else, this report poses a stark question:
If such a “sustained and institutionalised campaign” can unfold in full view of authorities, courts, and political leaders, what does that say about the future of justice, pluralism, and basic human dignity in Pakistan?