Asma targeted in Ahmedi hate campaign

Pakistan Punjab

Asma targeted in Ahmedi hate campaign

Rana Tanveer
October 27, 2010

Pamphlet calls her an anti-Pakistan, pro-American and pro-Indian Ahmedi.

LAHORE: One of the leading candidates in the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) elections is being targeted by a hate campaign that calls her an Ahmedi, pro-American and pro-Indian.

The Khatme Nabuwwat Lawyers Forum based in Markaze Sirajia, a seminary in Ghalib Market, Gulberg, Lahore, recently published an eight-page pamphlet titled Targeted Missile Against Supreme Court that claims Asma Jahangir, a contender for the office of SCBA president, is a Qadiani, a derogatory term for Ahmedis. It also accuses her of being anti-Pakistan and pro-US and pro-India.

The pamphlet has been distributed at the Lahore Bar Association and posted to members of the SCBA.

Also, an Urdu language daily recently published a statement from Majlise Ehrar secretary general Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema that “Qadiani elements” were campaigning for Jahangir in the SCBA elections. He said “anti-Muslim forces” wanted her elected president in a nefarious plot to abolish the blasphemy laws.

Jahangir, talking to The Express Tribune, accused her opponents of resorting to dirty tricks to win the election. She was confident that the SCBA members would not be influenced by “such mudslinging”, but regretted that such a campaign had been undertaken.

Hassnain Jameel, her spokesman, said Jahangir is a Muslim and her opponents were criticising her for fighting for the rights of minorities and the destitute.

Advocate Tahir Sultan Khokhar, vice chairman of the Khatme Nabuwwat Lawyers Forum, who is not a member of the SCBA, said that this was not the first time the group had acted against a ‘Qadiani’. “Since its inception two years ago we have taken significant steps in this regard,” he said.

Khokhar said the pamphlet was meant to tell voters the truth about Jahangir. He said he only wrote facts about her in the pamphlet and left it up to voters to decide which candidate was the right choice.

‘Military candidate’

Ahmed Awais, Jahangir’s main rival in the election, denied having anything to do with the hate campaign or the pamphlet. “It is not right to bring religion or other matters into it. The elections are an internal matter for lawyers,” he said. Awais said he had always been respectful towards his opponents during his campaign speeches, though they had abused him in their speeches.

He said he too was being targeted by “hateful propaganda” portraying him as the army candidate in the elections, a major insult since lawyers worked so hard for the ouster of General (retired) Pervez Musharraf as president. He was also being called a PML-N candidate to get the sympathies of PML-Q lawyers and a PML-Q candidate to get the sympathies of PML-N lawyers.

Senior members of the bar condemned the circulation of the pamphlet and the unsubstantiated rumours about the candidates. They said such mudslinging was an insult to the bar and the values it stood for.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2010.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/68099/asma-targeted-in-ahmedi-hate-campaign/

One dies in suicide hit on Ahmadiya worship place

Saturday, September 04, 2010

One dies in suicide hit on Ahmadiya worship place

By: Riaz Mayar | Published: September 04, 2010

MARDAN – At least two persons, a suicide bomber and another person, were killed while four people including three security guards got seriously injured in a suicide bomb attack on a house of worship of the Ahmadiya community located in the city.

According to the official sources and eyewitness, the suicide attacker wanted to enter the worship place located at the street No 2 Muslimabad Canal Road Rambagh Mardan and target the people busy in offering prayer. He threw the hand grenade on the security guards performing duty there but it failed to detonate diffused. The suicide bomber then threw another hand grenade towards security guards.

Meanwhile, the security guards started firing but the suicide bomber blew himself before entering the worship house. As a result the leader of Ahmadiyya community, Sheikh Amir Raza, died while security guards identified as Dr Karim, Sheikh Imran and Fahim and another person Abdul Salam who also belonged to Ahmadiyya community got seriously injured. They were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Mardan where their condition is stated out of danger.

Eyewitness told that a seventeen-year old boy who was wearing black clothes wanted to enter the place of worship and security guards started firing on him and then he blew himself in the street. It is to be noted that Ahmadiyya community is living in this area and they have made their worship place in a house and people who belong to the Ahmadiyya community go there from all over the city for prayer on Friday. It is pertinent to mention here that in the past, too, unidentified militants targeted the shops of Ahmadiyya community at Bikat Ganj Bazaar.

People belonging to Ahmadiyya community told that unknown people had been giving threats to them, prompting them to take proper security arrangements of their place of worship. District Police Office (DPO) Mardan Haji Waqif Khan while speaking on this occasion said that security was on high alert and due to which suicide bomber did not succeed in hitting his target.

He told that the suicide bomber was wearing suicide jacket containing 7kg to 8kg explosive material. He said that security was put on high alert and search operation had been started in the area. No militant group has accepted the responsibility of the incident till filling of the report.

URL: www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspap...adiya-worship-place

Bomber targets Ahmadi place of worship

Pakistan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa & FATA

Bomber targets Ahmadi place of worship

Manzoor Ali
September 4, 2010

Screen capture of damage caused to the Ahmadi place of worship in Mardan.

PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of a worship place of the Ahmadiyya community in the Canal Town neighbourhood of Mardan, killing himself and a security guard on Friday.

Police said the suicide bomber detonated the explosives strapped to his body when he was stopped by the security guard at the gate of the Ahmadiyya place of worship in the Muslimabad area of the city. As a result the security guard, identified as Shaikh Amir, was killed and five more people were wounded. Officials say the death toll could have been much higher, had the bomber managed to enter the worship place where Friday prayers were in progress.

The casualties were ferried to the District Headquarters Hospital. It was the first suicide attack on any minority community in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province since the beginning of the insurgency.

However, the Anjuman Ahmadiyya Rabwah gave a different account. “Two terrorists began firing at the Ahmadi Bait al-Zikkar when Friday prayers were in progress. A grenade was also thrown but it did not explode,” said Saleem ud Din, the spokesperson for the Jama’at Ahmadiyya, in a statement.

“One of the terrorists, however, managed to blow himself up at the door of the Bait al-Zikkar, killing the security guard and injuring three others,” he added. “The wall of the building collapsed as a result of the blast.”

He claimed were no security arrangements made by the authorities outside the Bait al-Zikkar or in the vicinity. And the second terrorist managed to flee the scene.

The spokesperson condemned the “barbaric atrocity”, saying that Ahmadis have been targets of such attacks for too long.

He said that despite the May 28 attacks in Lahore, authorities have made no adequate arrangements for the security and protection of Ahmadis. However, he added that the response of the Jama’at will be peaceful and non-violent. In another incident, a police patrol van was attacked with a bomb on the outskirts of Peshawar at around 10:44 am on Friday.

According to a police account, the patrol vehicle hit an improvised explosive device planted on a roadside near Pishtakhara Chowk on Ring Road. Three policemen were wounded in the blast. They were ferried to the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), where one of them, identified as Shabbir Jan, expired. The other two are stated to be in a stable condition.

Officials from the Bomb Disposal Unit (BDU) said around three kilogrammes of explosives were used in the IED which was detonated through a remote control. (With additional input from Wires)

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2010.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/46432/bomber-targets-ahmadi-place-of-worship/

Attack on Ahmedi worship place in Mardan kills one

Pakistan

Attack on Ahmedi worship place in Mardan kills one

Friday, 03 Sep, 2010

Several others were wounded in the suicide blast in the worship place in the northwestern Mardan town. — Photo by AFP

PESHAWAR: At least one man was killed and four wounded Friday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside an Ahmadi place of worship in Mardan, police said.

“A suicide bomber was trying to enter the Ahmadis’ worship place, but he was intercepted by the guards outside and blew himself up,” Mardan police chief Waqif Khan told AFP.

“A passerby was killed and four others were wounded in the firing and suicide attack,” Khan said, adding that it was unclear whether the man was killed by the bomb or by gunshots fired by the guards.

Police have handed over the bomber’s body parts to a forensic team, he said.

In May nearly 100 people were killed in the eastern city of Lahore after militants stormed two Ahmadi prayer halls launching gun and grenade attacks.

Gunmen later raided the hospital where victims were being treated, killing four people in a shoot out.

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URL: www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/d...xplosion-in-mardan-ss-08