Pak court charges 89 people in lynching of Sri Lankan man

Lahore: A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Saturday charged 89 people for alleged involvement in the lynching of a Sri Lankan citizen in its Punjab province in December last year.

A mob of over 800 men including supporters of hardline Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) allegedly attacked a garment factory and lynched its general manager Priyantha Kumara, 47, and burned his body over allegations of blasphemy on December 3, 2021, in Sialkot district, some 100 km from provincial capital Lahore.

Some factory employees had accused Kumara of tearing a poster of TLP inscribed with Islamic verses during his inspection of machines in the factory.

”Anti-Terrorism Court Lahore judge Natasha Nasim indicted 89 suspects involved in lynching and burning Kumara on the allegations of blasphemy during a hearing at the Kot Lakhpat jail here on Saturday,” a court official told PTI after the hearing.

He said the judge after charge-sheeting the suspects ordered the prosecutors to present witnesses in the court on March 14.

The official further said that the suspects denied the charges of their involvement in the crime.

Owing to security concerns the trial is being held in jail.

The suspects’ role has been identified through video footage. After the incident, nearly 200 suspects were taken into custody but no evidence of involvement of 110 people could be produced, thus they were not nominated in the FIR and subsequently released.

The local business community has handed over a donation of USD 100,000 to the wife of Kumara and the factory owner says his salary of USD 1,650 is also given to his family every month.

Surprisingly neither the federal nor Punjab government has announced any compensation package for the victim’s family so far.

Kumara was working as general manager in Rajko Industries (dealing in garments) in the Sialkot district for the last seven years.

The incident sparked outrage across Pakistan with all sections of society condemning it and calling for the culprits to be given exemplary punishment.

The ATC Gujranwala earlier had awarded one-year imprisonment to a man for ‘justifying’ the lynching of Kumara on his YouTube channel.

Convict Muhammad Adnan, 27, of Sialkot, had uploaded a video on his YouTube channel about the murder of Priyantha and justified the killing and burning of the body.