LAHORE: A Pakistani mob lynching of a Sri Lankan manager of a garment factory who was accused of blasphemy was an act against Islam, a court said in a detailed ruling on Tuesday.
The anti-terrorism court had on Monday sentenced six men to death, nine to life in prison, one to five years’ jail and another 72 to two years each in a mass trial over the crime. Eight of those sentenced were juveniles.
Scores of enraged workers in the city of Sialkot tortured and burned DDN Priyantha Kumara in December over accusations of blasphemy which a police official at the time linked to the removal of a poster with Islamic holy verses.
“The disgracing of a dead body and setting it on fire are strictly forbidden in Islam,” the court ruled. “The Holy Prophet (PBUH)...forbade Muslims to disgrace the dead body of even a non-Muslim.”
The accused had disobeyed the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), added the court, which was set up inside a high-security prison.
Lynchings over accusations of blasphemy, both crimes that can carry the death sentence in Pakistan, have been frequent in the Muslim-majority country. The factory incident took place in the heart of Pakistan’s most heavily industrialized region.
Pakistani judges and courts have often delayed decisions in lynching cases out of fear of retribution, and a clear court declaration that lynching is un-Islamic is rare.
The court said Kumara begged forgiveness before being brutally killed, saying he did not know what was written on the poster because he could not speak the local Urdu language.
It said the mob chased him onto a roof and then “started hitting him again and again with scissors on his face, head and different parts of his body.” The attackers also inflicted “blows with a brick, kicks and fists to his head.”
Kumara died on the spot before his body was desecrated and dragged through his factory and out onto a highway where it was set on fire, the court said.
“In our society, such incidents are increasing where a person is done to death by a mob on an allegation of blasphemy,” it said. “These cases should be dealt with by iron hands.”
Lynching of Sri Lankan manager by Pakistani mob was anti-Islam — court
https://arab.news/mrv3k
Lynching of Sri Lankan manager by Pakistani mob was anti-Islam — court
- The anti-terrorism court on Monday sentenced six men to death for killing Priyantha Kumara
- Scores of enraged workers tortured, burned Kumara’s body in December over blasphemy accusations
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
