New Delhi: Pakistan’s religious intolerance has reached its schools. Videos circulating online show students being taught to lynch Ahmadis—the persecuted community in the country who are treated as second-class citizens. Now activists and academics are condemning the indoctrination and asking for government accountability.
The most recent video was shared four days ago on the official Facebook page of Suffa English Academy Malir Karachi. The video shows a group of students hitting an effigy and cheering, with the caption “Students expressing their hatred towards those who falsely claim to be Prophets”—a reference to the Ahmadis.
Speaking to ThePrint, human rights activist Yasser Hamdani said that 50 years ago, the PPP government under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto shifted from a policy of neutrality on religious matters to actively excommunicating Ahmadis from Islam through a constitutional amendment.
In 1974, the Ahmadis were legally classified as “non-Muslims” under Pakistan’s constitution. This is despite the country being home to the world’s largest population of Ahmadis.
This significant and regressive change, supported by all major parties, including Bacha Khan’s ostensibly secular National Awami Party, marked the beginning of the severe marginalisation of the Ahmadi community. Over time, this has led to their dehumanisation in society.
“The video of school children being taught to mob lynch Ahmadis is symptomatic of a greater malaise in the Pakistani society. So entrenched is hatred and bigotry now that Ahmadis face an impending genocide,” said Hamdani.
He added that incidents like this show that Ahmadis are not safe in the country and that this is now “outright extermination”.
“It speaks volumes about the inability of Pakistan’s Muslim majority to tolerate dissenting voices in the society at large,” he said.
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‘Behead the blasphemers’
In another video posted on Facebook by the same school, a teacher lectures students about Khatm-e-Nubuwwat, an Islamic concept that refers to the Seal of the Prophets, which states that Muhammad was the final Prophet. It’s this doctrine that is used to deny the legitimacy of Ahmadis as Muslims.
Pakistani men applauded the ‘lynching’ video posted by the school in the comments. One wrote that he was ‘saluting their emotions’ and another replied saying that the students should give a speech along with the exercise.
Author Umair Khan posted the video on X with a sarcastic caption calling it ‘revolutionary’.
“Children are being trained in Karachi’s school to become good at m0b lynching from an early age. This Z0mbie Training Programme is revolutionary,” he wrote.
Highlighting the hypocrisy, Khan also shared a screenshot from the video, which shows a classroom wall decorated with the words “Lord, Increase my knowledge” in Arabic.
Journalist Asjad Bukhari called the incident ‘heartbreaking’. “In a society already devastated by extremism and terrorism, where over 80,000 civilians have been lost, children are now being influenced to commit violence against fellow citizens over religious differences,” he said.
Syeda Nayab Bukhari, a postdoc at McGill University called for a ban on the conservative party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) “This nation does not need any enemy, it is on a mission to swallow the future of its own children!!!” she said on X.
Another video shared on X shows schoolchildren from various cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa raising slogans—behead the blasphemers—against the Ahmadi community.
“It’s not education, it is indoctrination in extremism,” LUMS professor and activist Taimur Rahman said, replying to the post.
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Persistent attacks on Ahmadis
The video comes on the heels of a recent incident in Kamalia in the Punjab province where TLP extremists blocked the burial of an Ahmadi.
Since the constitutional amendments of 1985, Ahmadis have been denied their fundamental democratic right to vote, a policy enforced by the Pakistani Army and its political allies. This effectively renders them voiceless and marginalised.
In June this year, Ahmadi leaders were detained and jailed to prevent them from celebrating Bakrid.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had earlier called for a grand celebration of 50 years of the Ahmadis being declared non-Muslims on 7 September.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)