Ahmadi mosque raided in Pak, 7 arrested

A group of people led by the brother of a top Pakistani cleric and police allegedly raided a mosque of the minority Ahmadi sect here and "arrested" seven persons for possessing "blasphemous material".
Some 40 Ahmadis were in the mosque at Gulshan-e-Ravi neighbourhood on Sunday when a charged mob led by Hasan Mavia, brother of Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, arrived there with policemen.
A woman and a child were among the Ahmadis who were arrested, members of the sect said.
The Ahmadis ran in panic but the mob and police nabbed seven of them.
They were accused of possessing "blasphemous material".

Police later set the woman and child free and registered a case against five men.

Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi is the chairman of the All Pakistan Ulema Council and a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body that advises the Pakistan government on religious issues.
Last month, Ashrafi was at the centre of a controversy over remarks apparently endorsing suicide attacks in Palestine, Afghanistan and Kashmir.
The Foreign Office issued a statement to formally distance the government from his comments.
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiya spokesman Saleemuddin said that planned activities were being conducted against Ahmadis in Lahore.
"At some places, (Quranic verses) have been erased at the Jamaat's prayer centres and in others, inscriptions on tombstones have been defaced. Our Black Arrow Printing press has already been seized and a case registered against Al-Fazal, one of Pakistan's oldest newspapers, under the Anti-Terrorism Act," he said.

Saleemuddin further said in all these anti-Ahmadi activities, Hasan Mavia and Badar Aalam were involved in instigating people against Ahmadis.
He said senior officials assured that proper action would be taken to stop such activities but it now seemed that even the interim government at the centre was helpless.
He demanded that authorities should take notice of the illegal conduct of police and ensure the religious freedom of Ahmadis.
Pakistan's Ahmadis are a controversial Islamic sect who consider themselves Muslim but were declared non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment in 1974.
A decade later, they were barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.

Some 1.5 million Ahmadis live across the country.
Several Ahmadi cemeteries in Punjab province were vandalised last year.
Police in Lahore removed Quranic inscriptions from several Ahmadi mosques and shops run by members of the community after receiving complaints from the public.