Six awarded death penalty for mob lynching of Sri Lankan citizen in Pakistan

Lahore: An anti-terrorism court in Lahore announced the verdict in the mob lynching of Sri Lankan citizen Priyantha Kumara on false allegations of blasphemy in Sialkot last December, awarding death penalty to six prime suspects on Monday, Express Tribune reported.

Seven other suspects were sentenced to life imprisonment, while 76 persons were sent to prison for two years.

Priyantha, a 49-year-old Sri Lankan national, was lynched by a mob of workers at a factory on December 3, 2021, where he was working as a manager.

An FIR was registered against hundreds of unidentified men, including the workers of the factory.

The special anti-terrorism court had on March 12 indicted the accused. The trial of the accused was held in Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore.

Pakistan was shell-shocked in December last year when Priyantha was brutally lynched and his body was set on fire by the mob.

The sickening incident outraged the nation as the civil and military leaders denounced it as “horrific” “shameful” and “extra-judicial vigilantism”.

Pakistan President Arif Alvi had said the vigilante attack had nothing to do with religion, while then Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised that those responsible “will be punished with the full severity of law”.

The gut-wrenching incident took place on Sialkot’s Wazirabad Road, where workers of private factories brutally lynched the Sri Lankan national.