SIALKOT: A Sri Lankan national, who was employed as a manager at a private plant on Wazirabad Road in Sialkot, was beaten to death by a crowd on Friday, a day that Prime Minister Imran Khan branded “a day of humiliation.” The victim was accused of blasphemy and tortured to death by a mob.
Priyantha Kumara was recognised as the manager in question.
According to District Police Officer Omar Saeed Malik, the employees at the plant assaulted him brutally, which ultimately resulted in his death.
According to the authorities, the workers also vandalised the plant and obstructed the flow of traffic. Following the news of the event, a large detachment of police officers arrived on the scene and attempted to maintain control of the situation.
“Traffic was re-established on the route after successful negotiations with the enraged group of demonstrators,” a police officer said.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Prime Minister Imran Khan described the incident as a “horrific vigilante assault,” adding that the manager had been “burned alive.”
It was “a day of disgrace for Pakistan” after the “horrific vigilante assault [at a] plant in Sialkot” and the “burning alive of the Sri Lankan management,” he claimed.
A statement from the premier said that he is monitoring the investigations and that “all those involved will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
An official statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations Department, on behalf of Chief of Army Staff Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, described the incident as “cold-blooded murder.”
According to the statement, “the cold-blooded murder of Sri Lankan [national] Mr Priyantha Kumara by a crowd in Sialkot is exceedingly condemnable and humiliating.”
“This kind of extrajudicial vigilantism must be tolerated at any cost,” the statement said.
It was reported by the ISPR that Gen Bajwa has asked the army to provide “unrelenting assistance to civil administration in the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for this horrific act and their families.”
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