Lynching accused sent to Lahore

Next hearing to be held on February 28 on prison premises

LAHORE:

Eighty-eight people who had been arrested in the murder case of a Sri Lankan citizen Priyantha Kumara, were shifted to the Kot Lakhpat Jail in the provincial capital on Monday.

The next hearing of the case will be held on February 28 at the Kot Lakhpat Jail on the orders of the court. The accused were brought to the Kot Lakhpat Jail under tight security where the jail administration compiled the records of all the accused, searched them thoroughly, and sent them to barracks. 

The luggage they had brought with them was handed over to them after a thorough check. Out of the total number of the accused, 81 were under the custody of the  Sialkot  Police and seven were in Sialkot Jail.

A case was registered against 900 local factory workers under sections 302, 297, 201, 427, 431, 157, and 149 of the  Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act,  and the case was registered under  11WW  on the complaint of SHO Armaghan at Agoki Police Station. In the case, the petitioner alleged that the protesters had slapped, kicked, and punched Priyantha in his presence and beat him with sticks and dragged him out of the factory where he died and then his body was set on fire.

Read PM vows not to spare Mian Channu lynching culprits

On December 3 last year, an angry crowd in  Sialkot tortured and killed the manager of a local factory who belonged to Sri Lanka, and his body was set on fire. According to some reports, Priyantha  Kumara had reprimanded the sanitary staff for poor performance after a routine inspection on Friday morning.

The report added that as the factory was about to be painted, the manager began removing posters from the walls. One of the posters contained an invitation to a  religious meeting on which the workers objected which then led to the incident.

Kot Lakhpat Superintendent Saqib Nazir confirmed that the accused involved in the Sialkot incident had been transferred to the jail on Monday. Their next hearing would be held in the jail itself.

Last month, the business community had donated $100,000  to the widow and the family of the victim. The members of the business community, many of whom were friends and colleagues of the deceased Sri Lankan man, had raised the amount to lend a helping hand to the widow who had pleaded for justice.

Earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced that the business community in Sialkot had raised $100,000 for the family of  Kumara,  while they would continue to send his salary to his widow each month.

The amount had been deposited into the widow’s account. In addition, the owners of the factory where the deceased worked as a manager had also transferred a salary of $1,167 to the widow’s account. The salary will be paid to the widow every month without disruption for the next 10 years.