Thousands meet at Vaughan's Tahir Hall to mourn death of man in Pakistan

YorkRegion.com
June 5, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Soft-spoken, humble, selfless, intelligent, humorous, a doting father, a poet and an artist.

Those are just some of the words family and friends used Wednesday to describe Dr. Mehdi Ali Qamar, a Canadian cardiologist who had been practising in the United States, during his funeral at Tahir Hall Community Centre in Vaughan.

The funeral was held just more than a week after Qamar was shot and killed in Pakistan, reportedly because he was an Ahmadi Muslim.

“From childhood, he was very humble, even honourable. He was very respectful and everybody respected him,” said Hadi Ali Chaudhary, Qamar’s eldest brother, as a steady stream of mourners approached the simple coffin where Qamar’s body lay. It was draped with an American and a Canadian flag.

“He was a very angel-like person. Everybody used to like him and anybody who met him became his friend and that friendship was lasting, up until today,” he added.

Duresameen Ashraf, a niece, also shared her memories with reporters gathered at the community centre.

“He was always on his jokes so he would try to rhyme any time he could. He was actually a poet and an artist as well,” she said. “What I will remember most about my uncle is his sense of humour, his intelligence, his patience. When you asked him a question, he would sit there so patiently describing the answers to you.”

Thousands of mourners along with dozens of dignitaries and politicians — including Premier Kathleen Wynne, Liberal candidate Steven Del Duca and Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua — poured into the community centre Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to pay their respects.

Qamar, who has lived for about a decade in Columbus, Ohio, but called Markham home before that, travelled to Pakistan in late May to provide medical care to patients at the Tahir Heart Institute, just as he had done on several other occasions.

The 51-year-old father of three arrived there only days before his death, said Chaudhary, an imam at the local Ahmadi mosque.

He was visiting a cemetery, where his father and other family members are buried, when two men on motorcycles drove by and shot him numerous times in front of his wife, Wajiha, and their two-year-old son, Chaudhary said.

Too grief-stricken to address the large crowd gathered at the community centre, Qamar’s family prepared a written statement, read by his nephew Harith Choudry.

“My husband was an understanding, caring, and loving husband, as well as a nurturing father to our three sons,” said Choudry, quoting Wajiha. “He was a real servant of humanity who never discriminated against his patients on the basis of creed, language, colour or race, let alone religious belief.”

It is widely believed Qamar was killed, just as 10 of his relatives have been, because of his faith.

Founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Ahmadi movement immediately found itself at odds with more established Islamic sects such as Sunnis after Ahmad claimed to be a prophet.

The sect, whose tenets include tolerance toward other faiths, has about 10 million followers, including 1.5 million in Pakistan.

In 1974, then-prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto’s father, helped pass a constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadi non-Muslims. They are now not allowed to vote or to gather to celebrate Eid.

Since then hundreds of Ahmadi Muslims have been murdered.

It’s not clear whether or not authorities in Pakistan are investigating Qamar’s killing. So far, there have been no reports of possible suspects being identified or arrests being made.

But Chaudhary is optimistic the media storm touched off by his brother’s death and pressure from other governments around the world will force authorities in Pakistan to act.

That was, in part, the goal of a press conference held Wednesday afternoon at Tahir Hall Community Centre with government officials and representatives of the Ahmadiyya communities in Canada and the United States.

“Dr. Mehdi Ali Qamar was murdered because of his faith while on a humanitarian mission to Pakistan. Sadly, this murder is a direct result of the state-sponsored extremism that is practiced in Pakistan,” said Lal Khan Malik, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at at Canada.

Malik went on to call for the Canadian government to “urge the Pakistani leadership to stand up to extremists and to promote freedom of religion, to promote equality for all its citizens and to promote laws that allow full voting rights to all its citizens”.

Liberal MP Judy Sgro, co-chair person of the Parliamentary Friends of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, echoed those comments.

“This horrible, cowardly act... should be a call on our government of Canada, but also all our governments, that we, as human beings, as people who live in this world, will not tolerate religious intolerance,” she said.

Conservative MP Chungsen Leung, there representing the federal government, said “our Office of Religious Freedom is established and addresses these issues so that the world knows where Canada stands”.

That office’s mandate is to protect and advocate on behalf of religious minorities under threat; oppose religious hatred and intolerance; and promote Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance abroad.

Leung said the government will “bring attention and awareness to this issue” in hopes that “those of us who stand for religious freedom and tolerance” will put pressure on Pakistan.

Ashraf, Qamar’s niece, said she doesn’t expect the political issues to be resolved quickly, but she’s hopeful.

“I think it’s going to take a concerted effort,” she said. “I don’t expect something to happen overnight and I’m not going to put the responsibility on one group of people to do it. What I would like to see is governments, members of Parliament and other political figures come together and have some dialogue about what they’re going to do internationally, including in Pakistan.”

Following funeral prayers Wednesday afternoon, Qamar was buried in Maple Cemetery.