Home Individual Case Reports Case #8

Dated: September 10, 2008

District Amir of Ahmadiyya community, Mirpurkhas (Sindh) murdered in his own hospital
The next day, the District Amir of the Nawab Shah (Sindh) community fell to assassins’ bullets
The incidents were preceded by a GEO TV religion program in which in the context of Ahmadiyyat, blood, Jihad and ‘Duty to kill’ were brashly mentioned by the participants.

Rabwah: Dr Abdul Mannan Siddiqui, District President of the Ahmadiyya community Mirpur Khas was murdered at about 14:30 on September 8, 2008 in his hospital at Mirpur Khas. He was on his rounds at the time. Two assailants, one bearded and the other masked, opened fire at him. Nine bullets hit the doctor. Mr. Arif, the doctor’s Ahmadi guard was hit with 7 bullets and was removed in precarious state to Karachi. Two patients were also hit. The assassins fled after the attack.

Dr Siddiqui, 46, was a highly qualified physician. He was known for his competence and charity. He would routinely visit remote rural areas of Sindh every month to provide free medical care to the poor. He was popular among other sections of society as well. According to the daily Dawn of September 9, 2008, “Later in the day, activists of different NGOs, including HRCP core group, took out a rally in protest against targeted killing of Dr Siddiqui.”

Dr Siddiqui is survived by his widow, a daughter and a son in their teens and his aged mother.

Dr Siddiqui is the 15th Ahmadi doctor killed in Pakistan for his faith. Since the promulgation of the notorious Ahmadi-specific Ordinance XX in 1984, he is the 94th Ahmadi killed for his faith.

The next day after Dr Siddiqui’s murder another prominent Ahmadi, Seth Muhammad Yousuf, District Amir of the Ahmadiyya Community Nawab Shah (Sindh) was killed in broad daylight in the local bazaar. He was on his way home from his business at about 18:30 on September 9, 2008 when someone shot at him repeatedly. He was taken to the hospital. He had been hit in the head, neck and chest. Before he could be operated upon, he succumbed to the injuries. Seth Yousuf was 66. He is survived by his widow and three sons and a daughter.

Only a week earlier, at Karachi, Mr. Saeed Ahmad, Ahmadi suffered bullet wounds at the hand of an opponent. He was rushed to the hospital. He lost great deal of blood in that over a day or two it had to be replenished with 36 bottles of donated blood. He was under life-saving breathing and blood equipment, and fortunately survived.

A day prior to Dr Siddiqui’s murder, GEO TV aired ‘live’ on its ‘Aalim on line’ program, a penal discussion in the context of 7th September, as on that day 34 years ago, ‘non-Muslim status’ was imposed upon Ahmadis by the government. The discussion penal comprised two mullas and Aamir Liaquat, the anchor man. The three participants used highly provocative and slanderous language against the holy founder of Ahmadiyyat and promoted hate against the Ahmadiyya community. They used the words “blood, Jihad and Duty to kill (Wajb-ul-qatl)” etc. in the Ahmadiyya context. They violated the country’s law openly, and committed crime under the clause PPC 295A. Such sectarian drives by clerics are rare on the electronic media, but when undertaken in print or from the pulpit, these have often resulted in bloodshed. In the backdrop of the gory situation in the Kurram Agency, the GEO program amounted to opening shots of still another front.

Individuals and groups that are committed to anti-Ahmadiyya violence are well-known to the police and administration. These people do not hide their intentions and have a history of shedding Ahmadis’ blood. The authorities can easily bring them to justice if the politicians in power require it of them. Sindh is ruled these days by Mr. Qaim Ali Shah of PPP as the Chief Minister.

Is it not surprising and unbelievably absurd that under these circumstances, the authorities’ initiative amounted to registration of a criminal case under Ahmadi-specific laws against Ahmadi traders and businessmen at Rabwah, who published Ramadan time-table for observing and breaking the daily fast and “therein used the words ‘Imam’ and ‘Khilafat’, thereby injured the feelings of Muslims”, allegedly.