A mob in Pakistan lynched a Sri Lankan national on Friday before burning his body for alleged blasphemy in Pakistan’s Sialkot city.
Priyantha Kumara, in his 40s, had been working as operational manager at a private factory on Wazirabad Road in Sialkot, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, for the past seven years.
According to the police, violence broke out after factory workers claimed that Kumara was seen tearing posters bearing the name of Prophet Muhammad and throwing it into a dustbin. “The victim was accused of desecrating Islamic stickers,” said Anwar Ghumman, a senior police officer. He said that the manager was lynched inside the factory.
“Kumara allegedly tore a poster of the hardline Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in which Quranic verses were inscribed and threw it in the dustbin. The poster of the Islamist party was pasted on the wall adjoining the office of Kumara. A couple of factory workers saw him removing the poster and spread the word in the factory," PTI quoted a Pakistan Punjab police official as saying.
Locals said as rumours that Kumara had committed blasphemy started spreading across the locality, a mob started gathering in the morning vowing to lynch the foreign national. Ishtiaq Hussain, a local resident, said that people from adjoining areas also joined the mob in the lynching.