ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Friday it was a “day of shame” for his country after a Muslim mob attacked and killed a Sri Lankan man and burned his body publicly over allegations of blasphemy in the northeastern city of Sialkot.
Armagan Gondal, a police chief in the district where the killing occurred in Pakistan’s Punjab province, told media that factory workers had accused the victim of desecrating posters bearing the name of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Blasphemy is considered a sensitive issue in Pakistan, and carries the death penalty. International and domestic rights groups say accusations of blasphemy have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and settle personal scores.
The victim of the incident, a Sri Lankan man, was identified by police as Priyantha Kumara.
“The horrific vigilante attack on factory in Sialkot & the burning alive of Sri Lankan manager is a day of shame for Pakistan,” the prime minister said in a Twitter post. “I am overseeing the investigations & let there be no mistake all those responsible will be punished with full severity of the law. Arrests are in progress.”
The country’s army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa also described the incident as “shameful,” saying “such extra-judicial vigilantism cannot be condoned at any cost.”
According to a statement released by the military’s media wing, ISPR, he directed to offer full support to the civil administration to ensure the perpetrators of the crime were arrested and brought to justice.
The spokesperson of the provincial administration of Punjab Hasaan Khawar said in a statement later in the day the authorities had already arrested 50 people by retrieving CCTV footage of the incident to identify the culprits.
“I assure you not only justice will be done but will also be visible,” he said in a video message posted on Twitter. “No civilized nation can allow such horrible acts of violence.”
Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, the prime minister’s advisor on religious harmony, also issued a statement, saying there was no justification for killing a blasphemy suspect since such people should be judged by a court as per the law.
"Whatever has happened in Sialkot, where a Sri Lankan manager was brutally killed, is against the teachings of the Quran and the life of the Prophet (PBUH),” he said.
Human rights minister Shireen Mazari called the incident “horrific and condemnable”: “Mob violence cannot be acceptable under any circumstance as the state has laws to deal with all offences. Punjab govt's action must & will be firm and unambiguous.”
Video footage of the incident shared on electronic and social media showed hundreds of people gathered outside the factory, amid plumes of smoke rising from a spot in the center of the crowd where the perpetrators had reportedly burnt the body of the victim after beating him to death. Other videos showed a mob dragging a man’s heavily bruised body out to the street, where they burned it in the presence of hundreds of demonstrators who cheered on the killers.
Friday’s latest attack comes less than a week after a Muslim mob burned a police station and four police posts in northwest Pakistan after officers refused to hand over a man accused of desecrating Islam’s holy book, the Quran. No officers were hurt in the attacks in Charsadda, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistan’s government has been under pressure for the past several decades to change the country’s blasphemy laws. However, the religious right in the country has strongly resisted such demands.
A Punjab governor in Islamabad was shot and killed by his own guard in 2011, after he defended a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy. She was acquitted after spending eight years on death row and, receiving threats, left Pakistan for Canada where she lives in exile with her family.
