Persecution of Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan: The Reality of State-Backed Discrimination

Read The Diplomat, Know The Asia-Pacific Extremist-led mob violence in Pakistan often leads to further persecution – at the hands of the state. Early this year, on April 18, Laeeq Ahmed Cheema, a 46-year-old Ahmadi, went to an Ahmadiyya mosque in Karachi – the kind of place Pakistan’s anti-Ahmadi laws make dangerous even to name as a mosque. He did not return home. Outside the worship site, a mob had gathered and Cheema was beaten to death. According to the Associated Press, the Ahmadi community blamed the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a hardline Islamist religio-political party known for mobilizing around blasphemy and anti-Ahmadi campaigns. Less than a week later, on April 24, Muhammad Asif, a 19-year-old Ahmadi youth from Bhullair in Kasur district, was shot dead; another young man, Ihsan Ahmad, was critically injured. The International Human Rights Committee, a London-based religious freedom NGO, allowed The Diplomat to preview its upcoming report chronicling the persecution of Ahmadis from June 2024 to December 2025. That report attributes the attack on Asif to a reported TLP affiliate and says no arrests were made. In May, Tahir Mahmood, a 71-year-old Ahmadi, was arrested after attending Friday prayers. According to the same report, he was beaten and tortured in police custody, denied bail, subjected to weeks of abuse, and died as a result. On May 16, Dr. Sheikh Mahmood, a 58-year-old Ahmadi gastroenterologist in Sargodha, was shot dead inside his hospital, reportedly after prior threats. All of these victims, despite being in different daily businesses in their community – a businessman, a student, an elderly worshipper, a doctor – were all targeted for one reason: they were Ahmadi. Ahmadis identify themselves as Muslim. They pray, read the Quran, fast, celebrate Eid, and understand themselves as part of Islam. But the Pakistani state does not accept that self-identification. Pakistan’s Constitution lacks space for a true freedom of religion and belief. According to Article 260(3) of Pakistan’s Constitution, “Muslim” is defined through belief in the “absolute and unqualified finality” of the prophethood of Muhammad. The constitution then defines “non-Muslim” to include “a person of the Quadiani Group or the Lahori Group who call themselves ‘Ahmadis’ or by any other name,” alongside Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, and Bahais. The delisting of Ahmadis from Muslim community by Pakistani legal structure became even harsher in 1984, when Ordinance XX inserted Sections 298-B and 298-C into the Pakistan Penal Code. Section 298-B criminalizes Ahmadis for using certain Islamic terms and for calling their place of worship a “Masjid,” the Arabic term for a mosque. It also criminalizes Ahmadis for referring to their call to prayer as “Azan.” Section 298-C criminalizes an Ahmadi who “poses” as Muslim, calls or refers to their faith as Islam, preaches or propagates it, or invites others to accept it. Based on the penal code, punishment can reach three years in prison and a fine. This intentional listing of Ahmadi Muslims in the legal order among non-Muslim faiths, in a deeply Muslim and conservative country, has made discrimination against Ahmadis not only a matter of social hostility or extremist violence, but something placed at the heart of the Pakistan state itself. In such circumstances, whenever members of the Ahmadiyya community try to establish mosques as spaces for prayer, read the Quran, or practice Islam as other Muslims do, it triggers certain groups. Because the constitution classifies Ahmadis as non-Muslims, and the penal code permits their practice of Islam to be labeled as blasphemy, it has created the conditions in which mobs and religious clerics can easily threaten and incite violence against the community. When state protection is required, the police often simply restrict Ahmadis further. Courts can punish members of the community for alleged blasphemy – as seen in the Mubarak Sani case, in which Sani was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2025 for teaching and memorizing the Holy Quran. And the state claims that it is only maintaining public order, all because its own constitutional and legal framework permits this discrimination. Therefore, for the Ahmadiyya community, persecution is a part of their daily life, no matter if it is on Friday prayers, Eid prayers, burials, voting, identity documents, religious language, and even the right to call oneself Muslim. Farooq Aftab, an Ahmadi academic from the Secretariat of the International Human Rights Committee said, “The legal discrimination is not subtle – it is textual and state-sponsored.” Article 260(3) “constitutionally defines Ahmadis as non-Muslims, while Sections 298-B and 298-C criminalize core elements of Ahmadi religious expression,” Aftab continued. According to Aftab, that legal structure gives violence against Ahmadis a ready-made language of accusation. A mob attacking an Ahmadi mosque can present itself not as lawless, but as enforcing religious boundaries the state itself has drawn. A cleric demanding the sealing of an Ahmadi mosque can frame discrimination as law enforcement. A police officer can restrict worship and claim he is preventing unrest. This is how law becomes permission for persecution of a minority. When asked whether extremist-led mob violence in Pakistan often leads not to protection for Ahmadis, but to further restrictions imposed by the government, he said, “Yes, and the distinctive feature is that the ‘middle step’ is often the state.” Aftab continued, “Extremist actors pressure authorities, authorities respond by restricting Ahmadi worship, and then accountability for attackers is weak while Ahmadis face FIRs/arrests.” This is what makes the persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan different from isolated mob violence. The mob is only one part of the system. The other part is the state’s willingness to convert extremist pressure into administrative action. Amnesty International documented this around Eid-ul-Adha in June 2025, reporting that authorities across Pakistan prevented Ahmadis from celebrating the Eid festival, including forcing individuals to sign affidavits to refrain from Eid prayers and ritual. The report noted that after incidents of harassment of Ahmadis by violent mobs after Friday prayers on a near-weekly basis during Ramadan, in Sindh and Punjab provinces, instead of protecting the community authorities detained at least 63 Ahmadis for offering prayers. Eventually the country banned Ahmadis from celebrating Eid, which according to the International Human Rights Committee, “marked a dangerous new depth in state-backed persecution.” The cruelty extends beyond the living. Ahmadi graves have repeatedly been desecrated because they carry Islamic inscriptions. In some cases, communities have reportedly faced pressure to remove religious symbols from graves or worship sites. Aftab argued that police and local administrati