LAHORE: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC), Multan, on Tuesday remanded 31 suspects in police custody for 14 days in the lynching case of a ‘mentally deranged’ man in Khanewal district.

The suspects were presented before ATC-II judge Sadiq Masood Sabir in the afternoon.

Earlier, the Punjab prosecutor general constituted a two-member team to provide guidance to the joint investigation team (JIT) and collection of proper evidence. The members include deputy prosecutors general Arshad Leghari and Muhammad Azam.

Mr Leghari was present in the court and he sought physical remand of the suspects to complete the investigation.

The court handed over all the suspects to police for 14 days to complete the investigation.

Mr Leghari told Dawn that the police had arrested 31 suspects out of 33 nominated in the case and were also conducting raids to arrest others.

On Saturday, a ‘mentally ill’ man was stoned to death by a mob over alleged desecration of the Holy Quran at Jungle Dera village.

Tulamba police registered a case under sections 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly of people), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 302 (intentional murder) and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Pakistan Penal Code and section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act against 33 identified and around 200-300 unidentified suspects.

The first information report stated that when police officials reached the village, a man accused of burning the Holy Quran was found tied up with ropes and being subjected to violence by a mob.

The suspects killed the man after beating him with rods, sticks and bricks. “The suspects hung his body from a tree which spread immense fear,” the FIR said, adding that the body was recovered after much effort and taken for a postmortem examination.

Earlier, Punjab police claimed on Tuesday to have arrested 10 more primary suspects in the case.

According to a statement issued by the Punjab police spokesperson, the recent arrests have taken the number of total detained suspects to 112, among whom 31 are primary suspects.

The statement said the arrests were made in raids on different locations.

Punjab IG Rao Sardar Ali Khan directed the Multan RPO and Khanewal DPO to get the incident investigated under personal supervision.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2022