A one-and-a-half-year-old was buried on Wednesday, four days after she died from pneumonia in Toba Tek Singh. The family said that Muslim residents of the area had refused to let them bury the child in the neighbourhood graveyard because “she was born to an Ahmedi family”.
The child was finally buried on a land donated by a Muslim resident of the village, some 300 metres away from the graveyard.
The settlement was reached after the family of the deceased child staged a protest demonstration.
The family, a resident of Chak 312-JB Kathowali in Gojra, said that they had prepared the body for the burial in the neighbourhood graveyard. On Sunday, they said, some men stopped the funeral on its way to the graveyard and told them that they could not bury the child there.
The family said they were told that the villagers had decided not to let any person from the Ahmadia community bury their dead at the graveyard.
The family placed the body on the main road and sat around it. The sit-down continued for three days before police arrived at the scene and talked to both side.
After negotiations between both sides, police said, the child’s family agreed to bury the girl on land donated by Yaqoob Ranjha, a Muslim resident of the village and a neighbour of the deceased child. The land is 300 metres from the old graveyard.
Station House Officer Rana Muhammad Yar told The Express Tribune that the dispute was resolved amicably. He said no FIR was registered against anyone.
He said the police had tried to avert an untoward situation.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Waheed Ahmad, the child’s father, said that hers was the first ‘Ahmadi grave’ in the area.
Earlier, he said, all members of his family had been buried in the village graveyard along with their Muslim neighbours. He said it was the first time the villagers had objected to burying an Ahmadi in the village graveyard.
Ahmad, a daily wage labourer, said nearly Ahmadi families in Kathowali settled in the area in 1947. Most of them, he said, had migrated to Germany, Canada, the UK and the USA.
He said there had been no altercation between the Ahmedis and the Muslims in the village. He said there had been instances where people from both sides attended each other’s weddings and funerals.
“The situation got bad over the last few weeks, when a group of people in the village started a campaign against Ahmadis declaring them wajibul qatal. They had been asking other villagers to boycott Ahmadis and stop accepting our invitations,” Ahmed said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2013.
COMMENTS (17)
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There is lack of equality in our society, how can someone do this so shameful. We all are equal. If our illiterate village people get educated and taught, these major issues can become minor ones.
However death is reality and no body can not deny it the death is free of descrimination whether old young child men and women. But in case of a innocent child burial issue may not b considered because the child has no religion they r borned for love. Thats i can say about it and i wont make the issue contravercial God msy bless the soul of innocent child
A heretic even if he is only 18 months old and dead poses a serious risk to the intellectual and spiritual well being of pious inmates in a graveyard. The authorities (AC) were correct to ignore the issue and not intervene to let the corpse be buried.
@Moiz Omar -" The Quaid-e-Azam would be ashamed of us." he has been for a very long time specially disappointed at the people the citizen of Pakistan who sit idly and refuse to get involved and pay the sad story of the hapless victim
Indecent, uncivilized, heartless bigots. Proud of the generous neighbour but individual acts of charity cannot overcome the deficiencies of weak governance. Where was the area magistrate/AC sahib(a) while all this went on, hiding in his/her office? The local MPA, why did no one get him to intervene? Is our decrepit Police the only effective and autonomous authority on whom this country depends to enforce citizens rights?
Pakistan was suppose to be a state where freedom from prosecution solely because of faith was suppose to be non-existent. Now it has become a hot-bed of such prosecution. The Quaid-e-Azam would be ashamed of us.
Just another sad and terrible day in the blighted land of the pure,
May Allah bless Ranjha and show the right path to those who showed such inhumane, heartless and anti-Islam behavior in refusing the child's burial. People should fear the day of judgment.
My QUESTION to all Pakistanis is writing these comments of support is all facny & dandy but what are YOU EACH ONE OF YOU as a citizen doing to make the Ahmadis not suffer this humiliation? You read about these humiliations then you write your fancy sympathetic comment & you move on but the situation STILLexists.
I salute Mr. Yaqoob Ranjha. Pakistan requires more human beings like him.
What can you say on these types of acts?
It is as it is most difficult time for the parents to have lost their child infant chile. And to make them sit with the dead body of their loved one for four days is so inhumane and cruel. The parents have to keep seeing the dead body of their child rotting before their eyes for four days and not able to get over their grief after burying the dead body with proper rites.
@ahmad: Asking for God's blessing for a country where no one in the minority is safe???
Extremism is an old phenomenon but at the same time many moderates exist in Punjab as well. Education and exposure of local people to the rest of the world will tone down this type of narrow minded thinking.
We should all remember that Baba Bullay Shah was not allowed to be buried in Muslim's graveyard and even his funeral was not organized. He was buried by his colleagues outside the city but Allah have now made the desolate place of Bullay Shah to be most visited site and thousands of poor eat free langar from there on a daily basis. The story of Waris Shah is no different as well. So we should not be hopeless at all since tug of war on such issues is continuing for a longer time now but eventually tolerance will prevail in the future.
..and then we Pakistanis complain of racism against Muslims in other parts of the world.
Heartless people. I'm tearful. Such hate towards an infant? Horrible. Shameful. May Allah bless my Pakistan.
the neighbour saved the day !