LAHORE: Gunmen opened fire at a prayer meeting of banned Ahmadia sect on Monday morning, killing five people and injuring 10 in village Ghatialian on the outskirts of Sialkot, police and witnesses said. The attack came as fears simmered of violence against the Ahmadis following recent outburst against them.
Police said the gunmen used automatic weapons and fled by a car with no number plate. Bullets peeled off the plaster on the walls of Bait al-Zikr (House of Prayer) where members of the Ahmadi sect meet to pray, and splattered blood all over.
Eighteen people were listening to the sermon of a cleric after morning prayers when four men arrived the place, witnesses said adding three entered the main hall of the building while one stood guard outside.
"They sprayed bullets in all corners targeting everyone," a terrified witness, Qamar Ahmed, who survived the attack told the police. Ahmed's white clothes soaked in blood as he was removed to a nearby clinic by the police. "It took him several hours to recover his senses before he was able to recall the incident," Pasrur DSP Raja Riaz told the News.
"I rolled myself to a corner as I saw people falling all over," Ahmed told the police adding the assailants had long beards and were earing shalwar kameez. Four people were killed on the spot while the fifth died at a Lahore hospital. The critically wounded were removed to Pasrur district hospital.
Those killed were identified as Iftekhar, Shehzad, Ghulam Muhammad, Abbas Ali and Atta Ullah, while the injured were identified as Naseer Ahmed, Qayyum Aslam, Muhammad Arif, Master Muhammad Aslam, Nadeem Aslam and Azeem Aslam.
Cries and screams followed the killing as the tiny village mourned the deaths. The village has nearly 5000 people, half of them Ahmedis. The village is the second largest sacred place for Ahemdis after Rabwa near Chiniot. "We have always lived in peace but the attack has devastated us,", said Atta, whose younger brother died in the attack.
A 1974 constitutional amendment during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government had declared the sect outside Islam after a countrywide movement against them. A 1984 decree by military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq banned it from using Islamic forms of worship or describing its places of worship as mosques. Ahmedis are reviled by Muslims as heretics who believe that Holy Prophet Mohammed (Pbuh) is the last prophet.
Muslim residents said they had never been involved in any violence and had lived in peace. According to locals, a man who died in the attack was a Sunni. Shehzad Ahmed, 11, was inside the hall when the assailants sprayed bullets, a source said.
Police said they could not pin any motive to the killing. "It was meant to stir internal disturbances. The notorious Indian intelligence agency, RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) could be involved in the attack," a senior police official said. The village falls close to the border with India.
"We are exploring all possibilities and the circumstantial evidence collected from the scene suggests the operation was executed in a professional way," said Deputy Inspector-General of Gujranwala police Ahmed Nasim.
Sources also speculate involvement of a feared underground outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, in the killing. "LJ has a history of attacking Ahmedis and their involvement is a possibility," a police source said quoting the kidnapping-cum-murder of a Qadiani in Chiniot last year. Three LJ activists including Ijaz alias Jaji were killed in a police shootout after they had kidnapped and killed a Qadiani.
Police said no organisation had accepted responsibility for the attack. Police had launched a massive search in nearby districts in a desperate attempt to trace the killers. Witnesses told the police the killers escaped towards Baddo Malhi. The local police station has no telephone. This delayed the district police response. Even the wireless messages had to be aired from Pasrur an hour after the incident.
Meanwhile, following the killing of five Qadyanis, security was enhanced around the religious places in the city and elsewhere in the country on Monday. Talking to reporters at a press conference, the Lahore police chief said that the security had been beefed up in and around all religious places, including mosques and Imambargahs, and the worship places of the minorities.
Special security measures had been taken to avoid any such incident in the city, he said and added that police patrolling had also been increased around all important religious places. Besides, men in plain clothes had been deployed at sensitive places.
Our Sialkot correspondent adds: Security of minorities' worship places has been tightened across the country following the terrorist incident in Pasrur. Official sources told The News here that the government had sought a detailed lists of the minorities' religious places from the concerned departments. All the law-enforcement agencies had also been directed to provide tight security to the minorities and their religious gatherings, the sources added. They said security agencies had started round-the-clock vigil of the minorities' religious places situated in Sialkot and Narowal districts.