DADU, Dec 28: An investigation into the Sita village lynching case is almost complete as police have found on the basis of eyewitness accounts and video clips that 13 of the 39 arrested suspects are directly involved in the case, says SSP Usman Ghani Siddiqui.

Mr Siddiqui who is member of an investigation team formed by the IGP Sindh to probe the tragic case told Dawn on Friday that police had learnt names of 16 more people from the arrested suspects who they said were also involved in the lynching.

They would be nabbed soon, he said.

He said the remaining 26 suspects had been cleared and the court would most likely release them after the end of their 10-day remand.

He said that normality had returned to Sita village and its adjoining areas after the withdrawal of police.

Sita village was the scene of a tragic incident when a highly charged mob beat to death a 35-year-old man and torched his corpse after storming the Rajo Deero police station, 60 kilometres from here on Dec 21 and dragging him out of the lock-up. He was accused of desecrating the Quran.

According to SHO of the Rukan police station who is also looking after affairs of the Rajo Deero police station, the 36 arrested suspects including the SHO and other police officials, were remanded in police custody by the anti-terrorism court in Naushahro Feroze.

A famous Sindhi writer and columnist, Imdad Soomro, who lives in Sita village, expressed misgivings about the lynching incident and said Sunnis and Shias were living in the village side by side peacefully for decades.

Majority of villagers were educated and the village had never witnessed such a horrible incident in its entire history, he said, adding the case was still shrouded in mystery and it was not investigated properly.

Speaking to Dawn over the phone, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional leader Syed Mohammad Shah called for release of all detainees and said that villagers in Sita village, Nandhi Sita, Uaqoob Machhi, Lalo Machhi, Khamiso Machhi and Gulan Machhi villages were struggling to get back to their normal lives after the return of villagers who had fled their homes for fear of arrest in the wake of police action.

PPP MPA Imran Zaffar Leghari said that police would not be allowed to victimise innocent people and the case would be investigated purely on the basis of merit. Police had already started to release the detainees who were cleared of the charge after investigation, he said.

A vegetable seller in Sita village, Ghulam Qadir Soomro, said that tension had prevailed in the villages for eight days since the lynching incident but now people had started returning to their normal routine after police were withdrawn from the village, surrounding areas and link roads.