The Riots of 1953 — Page 33
33 even entered its compound and made more than one attempt to set the house on fire. 40. Some members of this crowd even went on the top of Lady A bdul Qadir’s neighbouring house and from there pelted stones, and petrol was also thrown on Sheikh Bashir Ahmad’s house but luckily the fire soon got extinguished. The situation became so ugly that the inmates of the house had to fire in the air and on the hostile crowd in self defence. It was only after this that the crowd disappeared and the lives of those who had taken refuge in this house were saved from the fury of rioters. 41. A strong mob of rioters also made an attack in the fore- noon of March 6 on the Ahmadiyya Jamia Mosque situated in the lane off the Circular Road outside Delhi Gate and threatened to put it on fire and burn alive Maulvi Abdul Ghafoor H. A. and his family residing in the house attached to the mosque. That they did not do so was not due to better sense having prevailed but because the mosque is surrounded on all sides by houses and Ihatas continguous to the walls thereof and once the fire were started it would have burnt the whole locality down to earth. It was because of this feeling of self interest that some residents of the locality came and demonstrated with the rioters, who very reluctantly retreated abusing and holding out violent threats of dire consequences to all Ahmadis. 42. The exhaustive list and details of properties belonging to Ahmadis which were either looted, burnt or otherwise destroyed has been given in Appendix “F”. 43. Some members of the Ahmadiyya Community were also threatened with death and loss of property if they did not renounce connections with the Ahmadiyya Community. Some of these were members of the Community residing in the village Shahdara near Lahore and amongst them were Hakim Mukhtar Ahmad and several