Protesters force Pakistan woman officer to apologise after she calls for equal rights for minorities
Islamabad/IBNS: Protesters, mostly students, forced a Pakistan Administrative Service officer in Attock area of the country to apologise after she raised the issue of human rights for minorities, media reports said on Saturday.
Attock Assistant Commissioner Jannat Hussain Nekokara made the comment while speaking at an International Human Rights Day event in Attock.
In her address, she had reportedly asked for the granting of equal rights to all minorities in the Muslim-majority nation despite their religious divisions.
“We should give due rights to non-Muslims Pakistanis, we should give them their due regard, we have unfortunately gotten stuck in these religious divisions, someone identifies as Shia, someone as Sunni, someone as an Ahmadi, someone as a Wahabi, we should dissolve these differences and instead identify ourselves only as Muslims and Pakistanis,” she was quoted as saying earlier by Pakistan Today.
Following her comments, protesters arrived at the district administration building and demanded an explanation from the Attock AC over grouping Ahmadis with other Muslims in her speech.
Defending herself, Nekokara said she did not in any way imply that Ahmadis were Muslims and said she accepted the constitution which declared them non-Muslims.
“I talked about minority rights, I spoke about rights of non-Muslim Pakistanis, may be I should have not even mentioned the word Ahmadi in that, then I spoke about how we should stay united and not discriminate against anyone so that we can protect against external enemies,” she was quoted as saying by Pakistan Today.
Attock Assistant Commissioner Jannat Hussain Nekokara lands in trouble for mentioning #Ahmadis while speaking at an event where she called for unity among all Pakistanis. She is forced to clarify her statement before a bunch of extremists. Imagine being an Ahmadi in Pakistan.. pic.twitter.com/Nd2KYDCpNl
— Bilal Farooqi (@bilalfqi) December 12, 2019
“They (Ahmadis) are non-Muslim according to the constitution and non-Muslim in my view as well,” she added.
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