Lahore, Apr 19 (PTI) The prosecution team in the Sri Lankan citizen’s lynching case in Pakistan has received death threats apparently from the radical Islamists as an anti-terrorism court sentenced six people to death and awarded varying jail terms to 81 others for their involvement in the brutal murder that saw outrage and condemnation across the country.
Anti-Terrorism Court Lahore Judge Natasha Nasim on Monday handed down death sentence to six prime suspects, life imprisonment to nine, five-year jail term to one and two-year jail term each to 72 accused for their involvement in the lynching of Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara and over allegations of blasphemy.
“Prosecution team members – advocates Abdur Rauf Wattoo, Asmatullah Khan, Asghar Ali, Zahid Sarfraz Khan Nadeem Sarwar and Umar Farooq – received letter from unknown person(s) threatening that they and their families would not be safe in the wake of death/jail term sentences to the suspects of the Kumara lynching case,” a Punjab government officer told PTI on Tuesday.
The letter said: “Our activists had done a commendable job by sending a blasphemer to hell. You and your family will not be safe in case our workers are punished.” The officer said police have registered an FIR and launched an investigation.
Police are suspecting that someone associated with the radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) might be behind this threatening letter.
A mob of over 800 men including supporters of TLP allegedly attacked a garment factory and lynched its general manager Priyantha Kumara, 47, and burned his body over allegations that he had removed a poster inscribed with Quranic verses on December 3, 2021, in Sialkot district, some 100 kms from Lahore.
The incident saw widespread outrage and condemnation across Pakistan with politicians, scholars and civil society members calling for swift punishment to the perpetrators.
Judge Naseem, who conducted the trial in the Priyantha Kumara case, on Monday pronounced the verdict inside Kot Lakhpat jail Lahore, convicting 88 accused and acquitting one of the charges.
The court took over a month to complete the trial proceedings in which over 40 prosecution witnesses were presented who testified against the suspects.
The prosecution had sought death penalty for 80 suspects.
Kumara had gone to Pakistan in 2011 after he got a job as a mechanical engineer at an apparel factory in Faisalabad. After a year, he joined Sialkot’s Rajco Industries as its general manager and was the only Sri Lankan national working in the factory. PTI MZ PMS ZH PMS PMS
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Source: The Print
