LAHORE: At least 28 more suspects were arrested on Sunday in the lynching case of two youngsters after twin suicide blasts outside the churches in Youhanabad recently.

SSP (Investigations) Rana Ayyaz Saleem said that suspects were taken into custody after matching their images from footages and subsequently with the record of Nadra.

“Police teams had carried out raids in different parts of the country to arrest suspects involved in the lynching of two youngsters, harassing a woman car rider and damaging public and private property,” he said.

The identification parade would be conducted to re-verify that the suspects arrested were actually the wanted persons or not, the SSP said.

He said all the suspects taken into custody would be presented before a magistrate to get their remand.

condemnation: The Cecil and Iris Chaudhry Foundation (CICF) has expressed concern over the alleged mass arrests by law enforcement agencies in Youhanabad over the lynching incident after suicide bomb attacks on two churches in the area recently.

A press release of the foundation quoted local residents as saying law enforcement agencies had been arresting en masse for almost a week. They claimed men in plain clothes stormed into people’s houses in the middle of the night and picked up men and young boys from the area. There was a wave of fear in the area, which had compelled majority of the residents to flee their homes, they said.

President of the CICF, Michelle Chaudhry, expressing concern over the situation, said: “We have and continue to condemn the extremely tragic incident of the lynching of two people at Youhanabad; such extreme form of violence is absolutely not acceptable. The perpetrators must be brought to justice and punished according to the law.”

“However, the tactics being used by the law enforcement authorities is highly inappropriate; barging into people’s house in the middle of the night and picking up husbands, sons and brothers and showing no respect whatsoever to family or personal life cannot be justified. These are neither terrorists nor hardcore criminals and therefore, should not be treated as such. The rule of law must prevail,” Michelle added.

“We request the government to look into this matter on an urgent basis and release all those illegally detained,” she further said.

The CICF also expressed disappointment over the comments of Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who in parliament declared the Youhanabad lynching incident as “worst form of terrorism”.

Michelle said: “We, by no means, condone the lynching incident. However, declaring it an act of terrorism is certainly not justified; by doing so the entire focus has been shifted to the lynching incident, subsuming the church attacks which left 20 people dead and over 80 people injured.”

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2015

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