Twenty people murdered at shrine in Pakistan: police

THE custodian of a Pakistani religious shrine and two accomplices have been arrested for intoxicating, and then murdering 20 devotees with batons and knives yesterday, police said.

Four women were among those killed in the attack at the Sufi Shrine to Mohammad Ali in Punjab province, according to police, who said they had arrested three suspects including the custodian.

The motive for the slaughter was unclear, but some officials said the chief suspect had mental health problems and had used violence on followers before.

“The 50-year-old shrine custodian, Abdul Waheed, has confessed that he killed these people because he feared that they had come to kill him,” regional police chief Zulfiqar Hameed said.

“The suspect appears to be paranoid and psychotic, or it could be related to rivalry for the control of shrine,” he said, adding that the investigation into the killings near the city of Sargodha was continuing.

Local police chief Shamshir Joya said the victims, whose clothes were torn and blood- stained, appeared to have been given intoxicants.

“We suspect that the victims had been given some intoxicants before they were murdered. But we will wait for a forensics report to confirm this suspicion,” he added.

Joya said the shrine was built in the area some two and a half years ago. Waheed – a one-time employee of the national election commission – took it over after completion.

Local rescue service official Mazhar Shah said Waheed used to meet devotees once or twice a month and used violence to “heal” them. “Local people say that Waheed used to beat the visitors who came to him for treatment of various physical or spiritual ailments,” Shah said. “Sometimes he would remove the clothes of his visitors and burn them.”

Punjab Minister for Religious Affairs Zaeem Qadri said intelligence agencies along with police and the local government were investigating all aspects of the case.

Qadri said that his department managed some 552 shrines in the province, but this one was not registered with it.

FATIQ BUKHARI/AFP Pakistani volunteers transport the body of a victim murdered at a shrine in Punjab, yesterday.

PATRICK HAMILTON/AFP Kayakers paddle on the flooded Logan River, caused by Cyclone Debbie, as it flows over the Mt Lindesay Highway in Waterford West near Brisbane on Saturday.