An anti-terrorism court on Saturday indicted 89 individuals accused of lynching 49-year-old Sri Lankan factory manager Priyantha Kumara Diyawadanage in Sialkot over blasphemy allegations last year.
Kumara was lynched by a mob comprising hundreds of protesters, including the employees of the factory he was the manager of, on December 3. The mob had tortured him to death and later burnt his body. ATC judge Natasha Naseem presided over the case’s hearing in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail and summoned 14 prosecution witnesses on Monday. All of the accused pleaded not guilty. Five prosecutors, including Senior Special Prosecutor Abdul Rauf Wattoo, appeared in jail for the trial in which challans were distributed among the accused. Wattoo told media that 40 witnesses have been made part of the challan by the prosecution.
According to the challan, videos, digital evidence, DNA evidence, forensic evidence, eyewitnesses, including Kumara’s colleague who had tried to save him from the mob, were made part of the investigation.
It stated that footage from 10 digital video recorders in the factory was sent for forensic analysis, while the accused were traced via videos from social media and footage recovered from the mobile phones of 56 accused.
It said their crime was unforgivable and called for the strictest of punishment to be meted out.
