Religious zealots burn Sri Lankan to death
Pakistan PM condemns `vigilante attack'
A mob of factory employees in Pakistan tortured and burned alive a Sri Lankan man they accused of blasphemy in what is believed to be the first such killing of a foreigner in the country.
Priyantha Kumara, a manager at a factory making cricket shirts in the industrial city of Sialkot, was dragged into the street and set on fire after a mob accused him of ripping up posters bearing Islamic holy verses.
Hundreds of people chanted and took selfies next to his burning body after the attack.
“The horrific vigilante attack on a factory in Sialkot and the burning alive of the Sri Lankan manager is a day of shame for Pakistan,” Prime Minister Imran Khan said.
Clips posted on social media showed the mob chanting slogans popularized by Tehreek-e-labbaik (TLP), a religious political party formed in 2017 with the goal of putting more blasphemers to death in Pakistan.
Police said when they arrived Kumar was dead.
Officers tried to stop the burning but were prevented from doing so by the mob.
However, they said more than 50 people had been arrested since the attack at the Rajco Industries factory.
Pakistan's powerful but usually silent military also issued a statement condemning the “cold blooded murder.”
“Such extrajudicial vigilantism cannot be condoned,” the military's press wing said.
Blasphemy is punishable by death under Pakistani law but nobody found guilty has been executed through the court system in the country's 74-year-history. Kumara had spent eight years as general manager at the factory, which makes sportswear, including Pakistan national team cricket tops, according to its website.
The attack came only days after a mob in the town of Charsadda set a police station on fire when officers refused to hand over a man accused of defacing a Koran.
The Pakistani government was recently accused of caving in to anti-blasphemy extremists after a confrontation with the TLP in which at least seven policemen were killed and dozens hurt.
The party has built up a formidable following among religious hardliners by campaigning against blasphemy.
Thousands of party workers marched from Lahore to Islamabad in October, demanding trade sanctions against France and the expulsion of the French ambassador over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a satirical magazine.
Khan's government freed the TLP leader and allowed the party to contest elections, a concession critics warned at the time would embolden extremists.