Depending upon their financial condition, some have used legal means while others reached the continent passing through the ordeals of human trafficking, as we witnessed in the recent Greek boat tragedy.

Some countries have recognized the need to protect this community from radical Islamists.

Since 2021 the UNHRC has attempted to create awareness of atrocities on the Ahamdiyyas around the world.

They issued a statement to voice discrimination against Ahamdiyyas based on their faith.

Though Pakistan actively appears before UNHRC to plead its case against India and find legitimacy (or loopholes to declare legitimacy), but when its Ahmadiyya population is in question, it has conveniently ignored the international body’s command, and thereupon its sanctity as Human Rights watchdog.

And so even in 2023, the Ahmadiyya Muslims are being witch-hunted, assaulted, and given animal-class treatment in Pakistan.

On July 5 an enraged mob stopped the construction of a Ahmadiyya mosque in Sanghar district in Sindh, and then the local police sealed the building.

Known as 'Baitul Zikr' translating to ‘a place of contemplation’, the place of worship cannot be referred to as a mosque, as decided by the majority Sunni Muslims of Pakistan.

In the past few weeks hate crimes and violence towards this community have increased exponentially.

Many cases have been reported from Kotli in PoJK and Sheikhupura in Punjab.

The birthplace of the founder of this sect of Islam, Qadian, is a religious slur in Pakistan.

The torture faced by its followers can then be imagined. It’s not only the civilians but the entire state that puts them in the same category as infidels, the way they do with other religious minorities.

This extremism was legalized when in 1974 Prime Minister Bhutto brought about an amendment declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslims.

In the 1980s President Zia-ul-Haq’s mission to Islamicise Pakistan changed the mentality of a common citizen.

They ostracized religious minorities, glorified Islam, and were given a free pass by the government to establish superiority over minorities.

Haq’s 1984 Ordinance XX gives explicit references to Ahmadis in sections 298b and 298c of the Pakistan Penal Code, which restricts Ahmadi freedom of religion and expression, violation of which can put an Ahmadi behind bars for three years along with a fine.

It forces the Ahmadis to not use the same religious terminology as the rest of the (Sunni) Muslims, such as Azan, or the call for prayer.

Since 1984 mobs across Pakistan have destroyed 33 Ahmadiyya mosques and sealed 44 of them.

279 Ahamdis have been killed for practicing their faith, and this statistic does not include cases that went unreported due to threats and bullying.

Crimes against minorities go tragically underreported, mostly in the Sindh province where assaults on females of minority communities, their kidnappings, conversions, and subsequent marriage with old Muslim men are not only common but normalized.

The construction of the Baitul Zikr outraged the onlookers because its minaret was similar to the ones found in mosques.

The police intervened in the matters and locked up the place to ‘keep the peace’.

 For Pakistan, to draw the distinction between majoritarian religion and other religions is a grave matter because somehow other faiths threaten the Muslims’ constitution-derived superiority.

 The locals allege that the police which is supposed to be the protector of the people, is involved in a conspiracy against the Ahmadiyyas through their association with the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).

Since the recent tightening of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, the Ahmadi sect isn’t even allowed to celebrate Eid.

This year the police confiscated their sacrificial animals and animal parts on Eid and reprimanded them for celebrating a festival exclusively meant for Muslims. In Kotli and Sheikhpura, Ahmadi graves were vandalized.

The gravestones of the dead were entirely desecrated as if to dissipate the identities of the ones that are no longer in the world like they never existed.

 In a more shameful act, 39 Ahmadi bodies have also been unearthed after being buried with the final rites.

Even after death, the community is unsafe. What will the radical state of Pakistan achieve by such a disrespectful act?

Since 1985 Ahmadiyyas have not participated in the election process because in doing so, they would have to explicitly declare their faith and face penalties.

It shows that Pakistan has not just attempted but conspired to remove the very existence and history of this sect as it refutes their fanatic religious theories and creates possibilities of thought.