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Author: Mirza Tahir Ahmad ra, 4th Caliph of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
Description: Any divide between revelation and rationality, religion and logic has to be irrational. If religion and rationality cannot proceed hand in hand, there has to be something deeply wrong with either of the two. Does revelation play any vital role in human affairs? Is not rationality sufficient to guide man in all the problems which confront him? Numerous questions such as these are examined with minute attention.
No. of Pages: 756 (read it online)
US$29.99 [Order]

Home Critical Analysis/Archives Report on Punjab Disturbances of 1953
Report of The Court of Inquiry

RAWALPINDI

The course of events that preceded the commencement of the disturbances here was precisely the same as in the other towns of the Province. The Ahrar started by denouncing the Ahmadis and their religion. In return the Ahmadis began to rake up the past of the Ahrar to strengthen the suspicion against their sincerity to Pakistan. After the All Parties Muslim Convention the Ahrar succeeded in winning the alliance of other religious sects, preachers and pirs, with the result that mosques became propaganda centres of the anti-Ahmadiya movement and Friday sermons were almost exclusively devoted to the deprecation of the Ahmadiya tenets. In November 1952, Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari and Qazi Ehsan Ahmad of Shujabad, two top-ranking leaders of the Ahrar, addressed a public meeting at the Liaquat Garden. Thereafter, a vigorous campaign was started for enlistment of volunteers and collection of funds.

With the arrest of the leaders of the movement in Karachi and of Maulana Ghulam Ullah Khan by the Punjab Government on 27th of February, processions and public meetings became the order of the day. The public meeting held in the Liaquat Garden, presided over by the Pir Sahib of Golra Sharif, was perhaps the largest public meeting held in living memory. The situation became critical on 6th March when after exaggerated versions of the events that had happened in Sialkot and Lahore, information came that the Punjab Government had accepted the popular demands and communicated their acceptance to Karachi. The immediate result was that people thought that the Government had surrendered and the processions became more aggressive and more numerous and had to be dispersed by lathi charges.

On 6th March, another meeting was held in the Liaquat Garden. A crowd, after dispersing from the meeting, went along the Murree Road and set fire to an Ahmadi mosque and a small car. Later, that very evening, some other incidents of loot and arson took place. The Ahmadiya Commercial College, Nur Art Press and the Pak Restaurant, situate in different parts of the city, were broken into and attempts were made to loot, burn or otherwise destroy the effects. A non-Ahmadi young man, employed in the Nur Art Press, was stabbed in the belief that he was an Ahmadi, and he succumbed to the injuries caused. As the situation became explosive, the military was called in on 7th March. On that day, telephone wires were cut in the jurisdictions of Police Stations Golra and Sangjani, Military were posted at suitable strategic points in the city.

On 8th March, a furious mob led by Masud Malik, a communist student of the Government College. Rawalpindi, and Maulvi Abdul Quddus Poonchi came in front of the Police Kotwali and started throwing brickbats. The City Magistrate ordered the police to fire and one of the rioters was killed and six others injured. After this, orders under section 144 banning processions and meetings and imposing the night curfew were passed. Two hundred and thirty-nine persons were convicted of breach of the curfew. The organisers of the movement then took refuge in the Jami’ Mosque from where they went on sending volunteers to court arrest. One thousand and thirty-three volunteers were arrested and prosecuted under section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code. They were all convicted, with the exception of sixty-four who apologised and were released.

The morale and loyalty of the lower ranks of the police and the army began to be affected because of the character of the agitation, and most of the Muslim League leaders and local M. L. As. went into hiding and refused to come out to face the public. In fact they played a double-role, outwardly siding with the authorities but inwardly supporting the agitation. There was no maulvi in the entire district who did not support the agitation. Among the maulvis arrested were Arif Ullah Shah, Muhammad Maskeen, Muhammad Ismail Zahidi and Abdul Hannan, all members of the All Parties Muslim Convention.

A large number of men came from the surrounding districts to take part in the agitation. A batch of 2,000 Pathans from the Hazara district was reported to be advancing towards Rawalpindi, but the Superintendent of Police prevailed upon the Pir Sahib of Golra Sharif to issue instructions to them to return. Similarly, Maulvi Muhammad Ishaq Mansehrvi, an old but a popular maulvi, also came out to load the movement, but the district authorities succeeded in winning him over and inducing him to issue a written appeal to refrain from lawlessness and disorder.

The agitation died down in the third week of March.

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