KARACHI: The Ahmadi worship place situated in the Martin Quarters area was vandalised on Thursday for a second time since January 18, according to its caretakers and the area police.

Jamshed Quarters SP Farhat Kamal said that around 20-25 people attacked the ‘Ahmadiyya Hall’, demolished its two minarets and smashed many articles and glass panels of doors and windows.

The SP said the police proceeded to the place and ascertained information about the incident from the watchman posted there.

He said the police also tried to collect CCTV footage of the episode but came to know that the network did not work due to power outage in the area at that time.

A spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Jamaat, Amir Mehmood, informed the police that the attackers not only caused considerable damage to various articles present inside, but also demolished two minarets. He said the other two minarets at the worship place had been damaged in the January 18 attack.

He said the attackers ransacked the wooden and glass doors and windows, cameras, an LED TV set, tables, chairs etc. They also damaged pictures of the Jamaat’s founder and its incumbent head.

“The area police were called in but the attackers had fled the place before their arrival,” he said, adding that the attackers left behind the ladder they had used in demolishing the minarets.”

The spokesman said efforts were under way to get the case registered.

The spokesman regretted that a case was lodged after the January 18 attack on this place of worship but no action had been taken against the culprits as yet. “No one has even been arrested till date according to our knowledge,” he said.

“Had any of the attackers involved in the January 18 incident been taken to task, today’s attack may not have taken place,” said the spokesman.

He claimed that the fresh incident was the fifth attack on Ahmadis’ properties in Karachi within a span of nine months.

Published in Dawn, September 22th, 2023