Six get death for Lankan man’s lynching in Sialkot

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Monday convicted 88 persons in the lynching case of a Sri Lankan citizen, Priyantha Kumara, in Sialkot.

The court awarded the death sentence on two counts to six convicts including Taimoor, Abdul Rehman, Muhammad Irshad, Ali Hasnain, Abdul Talha and Muhammad Ummair. The court also ordered the convicts to pay Rs200,000 each in compensation to the family of the victim.

The court has awarded life imprisonment to nine convicts including Rohail Amjad, Muhammad Shoaib, Eahtsham Zaib, Imran Riaz, Sajid Amin, Zaigham Mehdi, Ali Hamza, Luqman Haider and Abdul Saboor.

The court directed them to pay Rs200,000 each in compensation to the family of Priyantha Kumara. The court awarded two-year jail each to 72 accused on three counts and one year each on two counts. An accused, Ali Asghar, was jailed for five years. However, another accused, Bilal, was acquitted.

Earlier, anti-terrorism court judge Natasha Naseem had indicted the accused in a hearing in Kot Lakhpat jail. The Gujranwala anti-terrorism court was shifted to Lahore due to the sensitive nature of the case and the superior court had ordered the trial to be held in jail for security reasons.

The prosecution had filed separate challans against the adult and juvenile accused in the court. In the first challan, 80 adult accused were named while in the second challan nine juvenile accused had been nominated. Some 46 witnesses had been made part of the challan by the prosecution. Videos and digital evidence were also part of the challan along with DNA and forensic reports.

On December 3, 2021, a mob had tortured, killed and burned the Sri Lankan manager of a factory in Sialkot. The factory manager, Priyantha Kumara, had reprimanded the sanitary staff for poor performance after a routine inspection. 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 to which the workers objected which led to the incident.

An anti-terrorism court of Gujranwala had also convicted a Sialkot citizen, Muhammad Adnan, for supporting and justifying the brutal murder in a YouTube video. He was jailed for a year and fined Rs10,000.