SL’s Parl condemns lynching of Lankan national in Pak; Rajapaksa seeks justice

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Parliament and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday condemned the brutal lynching of a Sri Lankan national in Pakistan and hoped that Prime Minister Imran Khan will keep his commitment to bring all those involved to justice and ensure the safety of the rest of the island nation’s expat workers.

In a grisly incident on Friday, Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, who was in his 40s, was lynched and his body burnt by angry supporters of a hardline Islamist party which attacked a garment factory in Pakistan’s Punjab province over blasphemy allegations. Diyawadana, from Sri Lanka’s Kandy, was working as the general manager of the garment factory in Sialkot district, some 100 kms from Lahore.

The Sri Lankan government and the Opposition were united in urging the Sri Lankan authorities to have talks with Islamabad to ensure the safety of the rest of the Sri Lankan workers in Pakistan.

Taking to Twitter, Prime Minister Rajapaksa said: Shocking to see the brutal and fatal attack on Priyantha Diyawadana by extremist mobs in #Pakistan. My heart goes out to his wife and family. #SriLanka and her people are confident that PM @ ImranKhanPTI will keep to his commitment to bring all those involved to justice .

Khan said in a tweet: The horrific vigilante attack on a factory in Sialkot & the burning alive of a Sri Lankan manager is a day of shame for Pakistan. I am overseeing the investigations & let there be no mistake, all those responsible will be punished with full severity of the law. Arrests are in progress.

Pakistan President Arif Alvi tweeted: The Sialkot incident is definitely very sad & shameful, and not religious in any way whatsoever. Islam is a religion that established cannons of deliberative justice rather than mob lynchings. “We are glad that the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had very strongly condemned this brutal act,” Sri Lankan education minister Dinesh Gunawardena told Parliament.

Diywadana had graduated from the University of Peradeniya in Kandy. He came from a poor background, Parliament was told. He was murdered by the supporters of the Tehreeke-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a hardline Islamist party, which was previously banned.

“Mr Kumara allegedly tore a poster of the hardline 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,” according to a police official in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Meanwhile, over 800 people have been booked under terrorism charges while 13 prime suspects are among 118 arrested so far in the horrific lynching of a Sri Lankan national over allegations of blasphemy in Punjab province of Pakistan, a top police official said, as pressure mounted on the government to bring the guilty to justice.

Over 800 people booked under terrorism charges in lynching of Sri Lankan national