Hundreds of citizens in Faisalabad severely thrashed and tortured two robbers after catching them from a factory on Saturday.
According to police officials, the accused were found in the limits of Peoples Colony police station and the robbers Kashif and Imran were seen riding on a motorcycle escaping the factory premises. Residents said that they saw the men forcefully break into a plastic factory situated near Canal Road.
“They held the workers and other staff at gunpoint and arbitrarily started looting them,” said eyewitness Bashir Muhammad.
Protesters said that the robbers had also slapped some workers when they became hesitant to empty their pockets and give the men what they had.
“They held us at gun point and were beating us,” said a factory worker Shahram. During the robbery, some of the workers resisted the robbers and began beating them with sticks. “The robbers then resorted to aerial firing but there were far too many of us and only two of them,” he said.
The factory workers and others on the street seized the robber’s arms and began hitting them with the butts of the guns. They also flogged them with sticks and bricks. “Many people from the street also joined in when they found out what had happened. There were nearly 170 people,” said factory worker Umair Sabir Bukhsh.
Police officials said that when they arrived at the scene the mob was baying for blood. “The people wanted the robbers strung up and hung. People were actually bringing rope to tie them to the roof of a shop. They planned to stone them as well,” said inspector Karimullah Khan.
Receiving information, Station House Officer (SHO) Peoples Colony rushed to the spot and asked the mob to hand over the criminals to the police but the crowd refused to do so. “They said that they themselves will prosecute and punish the robbers as the police always releases criminals after taking illegal gratification,” said an eyewitness.
Senior police officials also reached the spot and assured the infuriated mob that the criminals would not be set free and would be dealt with according of the law.
Both accused had been seriously injured and were admitted to the emergency ward of Allied Hospital, where they are undergoing treatment. Hospital doctors said that both men had suffered critical injuries.
The police recovered a revolver and a motorcycle (125) from their possession and has started an investigation.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 16th, 2011.
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At least these Faisalabad Citizens keep up with the news of other such public lynching, like in Sialkot and Karachi. Instant mob justice can never be fair or justified, and no replacement for a ruling by a court of law, however flawed that is nowadays in our land of the pure. Two innocent youngsters, Muneez and Muneeb, were butchered by a similar mob a while back, and around twenty of of those self certified jury and executioners are now languishing in prison, awaiting their own dreadful fate of either death or life imprisonment. All because somebody shouted "Robbers!" and everybody suddenly became cops, while real cops became passer byes of an unholy and unspeakable murderous lynching that shocked the whole country and beyond. An hour of brutal madness, which ruined hundreds of lives, and horrified and shamed the whole nation, as millions around the world watched opaque pictures of two innocent boys being slaughtered - not by terrorists or invading armies of Amreeka and Hindustan, but their own kith and kin, their fellow Sialkotiays, Muslim brothers and uncles, who just happened to be passing by and thought they might as well start the day with a good deed. After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed, and a bit of discipline never done any young boys any harm, right? If those pictures were never captured on mobile phones, and broadcast on TV, those two brothers would have been described as "two dacoits killed in police encounter in Sialkot", end of story. Similarly, who would have known about the fate of Sarfraz Shah, shot dead by those that were supposed to be protecting the citizens, and at the most, arresting the villains. How they managed to find him guilty of theft and execute him on the spot, is something only the mind of a deranged and callous killer could possibly explain. Will we ever know the truth about these two Peoples Colony robbers, where incidentally we also own a house, and have a factory further along on Samundri Road. Just like to say that this sort of mob rule and lynching is something that never came to mind in the 36 years of our residence here, although we had incidents of theft and robbery from the factory over the years. Those that were apprehended were treated as fairly as possible; wrongs were righted, and they're in the land of the living and leading, hopefully, better lives. Unlike Muneez, Muneeb, Sarfraz and God only knows how many hundreds if not thousands more. A few weeks ago, the mob was hunting for a little girl who put a dot slightly to the left on the Urdu word "naat". That should teach her a lesson, or two, for the rest of her life. And it should encourage more girls, especially from the minority communities, to go to school and write laurels about the Prophet. And what about the hundred or so students from the Millat Grammar School who were on a trip to Muree and the Salt Mines, but were in reality, helping to make around £400 profit for the school owners. That's less than a fiver per child; here in the UK, that would get a kid a burger meal in McDonalds, with salt for the chips thrown in for free; salt just possibly from the Khewra Mines, which their distant cousins went to see, but paid for pleasure with their young innocent lives. They would have been safer going to the Satyana Road McDonalds in Faisalabad, unless of course they had unfortunately ran into the crowd in Peoples Colony - which they probably would have, with the brakes on their scrapped 37 years old banger of a bus failing to work on the corner of Kalma Chowk, where these children of the lesser god can read their last rites, instead of having the salt of Khewra Mines rubbed into their bleeding wounds. God help us, or teach us how to die in dignity.