20 shrine faithful killed; Pakistanis accuse keeper

MULTAN, Pakistan — The custodian of a Pakistani shrine and his accomplices killed 20 devotees after intoxicating them in eastern Punjab province, police said Sunday, in what officials said was the outcome of a dispute over custodianship of the shrine.

Senior police officer Mohammad Bilal said the shrine custodian in a village near the city of Sargodha some 200 miles north of Multan was arrested Sunday morning along with four others accused of killing worshippers with batons and knives. Bilal said another four people were in critical condition.

An injured woman who managed to escape the attack reported it to authorities, officials said.

A doctor at Sargodha hospital told Geo TV that the victims were killed while nude, and that the bodies bore multiple stab wounds and blunt weapons marks.

Liaquat Ali Chatta, area government administrator, said officials arrested Abdul Waheed, 50, and four people accused of being his accomplices, and the matter was being investigated. Chatta said Waheed is a retired government employee and seemed “mentally unstable.”

Chatta said the custodian was in the practice of “beating and torturing” devotees to “cleanse” them of their sins. He said Waheed had confessed to the murders.

According to televised reports, Waheed drugged devotees and then called them one by one to his room, where they were killed with a club and knife.

Zulfiquar Hameed, regional police officer for Sargodha and surrounding districts, said the main suspect’s confession and other relevant statements suggested the killings were the “outcome of jealousy and dispute over custodianship” of the shrine.

“This man was afraid of losing prominence and that the position would go to somebody else,” said Hameed, who is heading the investigation. Officials said Waheed thought of himself as being in control of the Ali Muhammad Gujjar shrine, which was established after the self-described mystic died two years ago, and that Waheed feared that Gujjar’s only son, Asif Gujjar, would kill him to reclaim power.

Waheed told authorities that the killings were in self-defense because he believed that Asif Gujjar and the pilgrims to the shrine planned to poison him. Gujjar, 35, is among the 20 victims.

“Locals say that Asif claimed he is the rightful heir of the shrine, being the son of Ali Muhammad Gujjar,” Chatta said.

Rana Sanaullah, law minister for the Punjab provincial government, said an initial investigation showed that Waheed had a collection of followers who would regularly visit the shrine and face torture in the name of religious cleansing.

Shamsher Joya, a local police officer, said Waheed would come to the shrine twice a week from Lahore, and his followers would submit to “beating and torturing with a red-hot iron rod.”

The devotees were Muslims of the Barelvi sect, who generally revere shrines and follow the teachings of people they deem to be saints and mystics. In rural areas, poor devotees seek not only spiritual guidance, but also cures for diseases in rituals performed by mystics and shrine custodians.

Police said the victims were killed at a house adjacent to the shrine and their clothing was found burned.

Punjab’s minister for religious affairs, Zaeem Qadri, said the shrine was not registered with the government, and that the government would crack down on fake spiritual leaders in the province. There are more than 550 registered shrines in the province of Punjab alone.

Malik Ahmed Khan, a spokesman for the provincial Punjab government, said there had been no previous complaints about the shrine or the practices there.

“Only after this incident, people from the surrounding area told police that they used to hear screams coming from the shrine,” Khan said. “Locals said that the devotees were beaten as part of a ritual. The shrine was always crowded by drug addicts and people who were under the influence.”

The chief minister of Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, has ordered an inquiry into the killings and has announced that the families of those who were killed would be compensated, according to Salman Sufi, an aide to the chief minister.

“The practices at shrines include money donations, jewelry and gifts in return of a pat of blessing from the custodians,” Sufi said. “Some guardians are appointed after an inner power struggle no less than those on the lines of Cosa Nostra,” he added, referring to the Sicilian Mafia.

An elderly woman, who was identified only as Kishwar and lay on a hospital bed with a deep cut on the left side of her face, told the news channel Dunya, “I don’t know what happened to the custodian of the shrine. He started beating and killing the devotees. He and some others … beat us badly with clubs.” Information for this article was contributed by Salman Masood and Daniyal Hassan of The New

York Times; by Shaiq Hussain of The Washington Post; by Qamar Zaman of the German Press Agency; and by staff writers of The Associated Press.