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LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday indicted 89 individuals accused of lynching a Sri Lankan factory manager in Sialkot over blasphemy allegations.
The victim, 49-year-old Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, was tortured to death and his body was set on fire in December by furious workers of the Rajco Industries garment factory, where he was a manager.
An FIR was later registered against 900 workers at the Uggoki police station for aggravated murder and burning of the body against dozens of unidentified people under terrorism and murder provisions. Several suspects were arrested in the following days.
During the trial proceedings on Saturday in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail, ATC judge Natasha Naseem formally charged the suspects, including nine juveniles. Special prosecutor Abdul Rauf Wattoo presented the charges. All the accused have pleaded not guilty.
The judge directed the prosecution to produce its witnesses on Monday (tomorrow).
Five prosecutors, including Mr Wattoo, appeared in jail on Saturday for the trial in which challans were also distributed among the accused. Forty witnesses have been made part of the investigation, besides videos, digital evidence, DNA evidence and forensic evidence.
The witnesses also include Mr Kumara’s colleague who tried his best to save him from the mob.
According to the challan, footage from 10 digital video recorders in the factory was sent for forensic analysis and the accused were traced via social media videos and footage recovered from the mobile phones of 56 accused. It said their crime was unforgivable and called for the strictest punishment possible.
Earlier, the prosecutor general of Punjab constituted a special prosecution team to ensure a quality trial on behalf of the state in the lynching case, which was shifted to Lahore from Gujranwala.
Mr Kumara, a Sri Lankan Christian, had been working at Rajco Industries for 10 years and was brutally killed on Dec 3.
According to witnesses, when the protest started and the road was blocked on that fateful day, only three personnel from the Uggoki police station arrived. Had the district police officer responded to the sensitive matter on time, the killing could have been avoided, they said and held police’s incompetence responsible for the gruesome incident.
The incident saw widespread outrage and condemnation across Pakistan, with politicians, scholars and civil society members calling for swift punishment for perpetrators.
Prime Minister Imran Khan called it “a day of shame” for the country. “The horrific vigilante attack on a factory in Sialkot and the burning alive of Sri Lankan manager is a day of shame for Pakistan,” he said in a message on Twitter after the incident.
Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2022
