SIALKOT: An Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) on Friday convicted a Sialkot citizen for attempting to justify the brutal murder of Sri Lankan citizen Diyawadanage Don Nandasri Priyantha in a YouTube video soon after the incident.
According to details, the local police filed a First Information Report (FIR) against Muhammad Adnan on the complaint of Sub Inspector Mubarak Ali two days after the brutal murder of Priyantha Kumara.
The FIR stated that Adnan had uploaded a video on YouTube in which he supported the actions of those involved in the lynching of the Sri Lankan citizen. Police had subsequently arrested Adnan and produced him in ATC Gujranwala.
During the hearing of the case, the accused had admitted to the charges framed against him, on which the court sentenced him to one year imprisonment and a penalty of Rs10,000.
The foreign worker, commonly known as Priyantha Kumara, was savagely lynched in Sialkot over spurious blasphemy allegations late last year.
The incident
Priyantha Kumara, working as a manager at a private factory in Sialkot, was beaten to death in December by a mob after being accused of blasphemy in highly controversial circumstances.
Workers of a garment industry, which was located located on Sialkot’s Wazirabad Road, had alleged that the foreigner had committed blasphemy, reportedly after he tore down some posters from the factory’s walls ahead of a scheduled inspection.
The mob subsequently murdered him and set his body on fire. The brutal murder had elicited shock and drawn widespread condemnation from the Pakistani citizenry, senior government functionaries, including the prime minister and president.
Police had subsequently arrested more than 100 suspects for their suspected involvement in the case, including two individuals described as the main accused.
