Government accused of encouraging extremists after lynching Sri Lankans in Sialkot

Last modified on Friday, December 3, 2021 at 13.36 EST

A group of mobs in Pakistan tortured, killed and set fire to a Sri Lankan man who was accused of desecrating some of the posters he had allegedly removed.

Priyantha Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan national who served as the general manager of a factory at Rajco Industries, an industrial engineering company in Sialkot, Punjab, was attacked by a violent crowd on Friday.

In the horrible video shared on social media, Diyawadana can be seen being thrown on the floor. Hundreds of people started tearing his clothes and beating him violently. He was tortured to death, and then his body was burned. You can also see dozens of people in the crowd taking selfies with his corpse.

The incident began with rumors that Diyawadana, who had been a factory manager for seven years, removed a poster with the words "Quran" on it. In the morning, a group of people began to gather at the entrance of the factory. In the early afternoon, they rushed into the factory and caught Diyawadana.

Police Assistant Commissioner Mohammed Murtaza said: “Due to the renovation of the factory building, some of the posters on the wall were torn off. They may have desecrated the poster bearing the name of the Prophet Muhammad. Perhaps the manager was lynched for this. ."

He added: "Unfortunately, I cannot be sure or deny anything at this time. The alibi used for the murder proved to be blasphemous, but the cause of the murder seems to be personal and targeted. This issue is under investigation."

Murtaza said that at least 50 people have been arrested, and more people may be arrested as the police review the live footage. Amnesty International stated that it was “deeply shocked by the lynching and killing of a Sri Lankan factory manager in Sialkot, allegedly due to accusations of blasphemy”.

Pakistan is an Islamic country, and its notoriously severe law prohibiting blasphemy can be punishable by death. These laws are often used against religious minorities, and defendants are sometimes lynched before they are proven guilty in court. The culture of fear surrounding blasphemy cases means that judges are usually too scared to discover anything other than the guilt of the defendant.

One of Pakistan's most notorious blasphemy cases is the Christian woman Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to death by her colleagues in 2010 for blasphemy. Nearly ten years later, she was acquitted under heavy international pressure.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the violence in Sialkot. "The terrible lynching attack on the Sialkot factory and the [killing] of a Sri Lankan manager is a shameful day for Pakistan. I am monitoring the investigation, and there is no doubt that all those responsible will be punished by the most severe law. The arrest is ongoing," he wrote on Twitter.

However, some critics have linked the incident to the recent major turn in the policy of the Khan government against Pakistan’s hardline Islamic group “Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan” (TLP).

TLP was banned by the Khan government and declared a radical organization. However, after TLP followers launched a wave of deadly protests in Lahore in October, resulting in the deaths of at least six police officers, the government agreed to lift the ban on the organization. In one of the videos at the Sialkot scene, two violent instigators quoted TLP slogans to justify their actions against Diyawadana.

Many people worry that the violence caused by suspected blasphemy and mob lynching will escalate. Last week, a police station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was set on fire after the police refused to hand over the person accused of blasphemy to a mob. The police car was burned down.

Hussein Haqqani, a scholar at the Hudson Institute and former ambassador to the United States, stated that Pakistan has condoned and empowered extremist Islamists for many years. “The state machinery supports those who commit violence in the name of religion rather than protect the victims. Only recently did the government reach an agreement with the TLP, which is responsible for killing police officers during violent protests,” he said.

He added: "The rise of TLP has normalized murders due to blasphemy accusations. What was once a random event has now become an epidemic."