Over 75 suspects, including members of the radical Tehreek Laibbaik Pakistan (TLP) outfit, have been arrested for their alleged role in the lynching of a blasphemy-accused man in Punjab province of Pakistan, police said on Monday.
A violent mob on Saturday stormed the police station at Warburton in Nankana Sahib, some 80kms from Lahore, took custody of Waris Ali Issa, who was arrested for allegedly desecrating the holy book, stripped him naked, and dragged him into the streets before beating him to death.
An FIR has been registered against over 800 suspects for killing Waris, attacking police personnel, and ransacking the police station under terrorism and different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code.
“So far we have arrested over 75 suspects as identification of more suspects is in the process through various mobile video and CCTV clips,” Nankana Sahib District Police Officer (DPO) Asim Iftikhar said on Monday.
He said activists of a religious outfit were also involved in the brutal killing of Waris.
“The religious extremists incited the people through announcements from mosques to storm the police station and take custody of the blasphemy accused,” Iftikhar said, adding that the police had “hidden” Waris in the bathroom of the police station in order to save him from the wrath of the people but to no avail.
Another senior officer told PTI that TLP activists were involved in inciting people and leading the mob.
“At least 10 members of the TLP are included in those arrested in the lynching. Raids are underway to arrest the remaining TLP activists and others involved in the gruesome crime,” the officer said, adding that some neighbours of Waris accused him of witchcraft.
They alleged that Waris pasted the pictures of his ex-wife and a knife on the holy pages for witchcraft, the officer said.
Waris was recently released from jail in the blasphemy case registered against him in 2019 for allegedly desecrating pages of the holy book. The court declared him innocent after the blasphemy charges against him could not be proved.
Waris’ mother Nooran Bibi told the police that his son was innocent as he never practiced witchcraft.
“Waris was living with me in his small house in Warburton after divorcing her wife a few years ago. He was mentally upset after he got divorced,” she said and suspected that a friend of his son, Muhammad Boota, who had a money dispute with him, was behind the whole matter.
“Boota seems to be behind this false allegation of blasphemy against my son,” she alleged.
In December 2021, a mob including the members of TLP in Sialkot city of Punjab tortured a Sri Lankan man, who was working as a manager at a local factory, to death over blasphemy allegations. The incident drew widespread condemnation.
Last year, an anti-terrorism court in Lahore handed down the punishment to 88 suspects involved in Sri Lankan citizen Piryantha Kumara’s lynching case. Six of them were sentenced to death.
According to the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS)’s last year report, at least 89 citizens have been killed and over 1,415 allegations, as well as cases of blasphemy, have been reported in Pakistan since the creation of the Islamic country.
The report says that between 1947 and 2021, 18 women and 71 men were extra-judicially killed over blasphemy accusations.
The allegations were made against 107 women and 1,308 men.
(PTI)
