{"id":121814,"date":"2022-01-05T17:28:56","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T00:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=121814"},"modified":"2022-01-05T17:28:56","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T00:28:56","slug":"priantha-kumara-sialkot-fanatics-senseless-lynching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/01\/05\/priantha-kumara-sialkot-fanatics-senseless-lynching\/","title":{"rendered":"PRIANTHA KUMARA -Sialkot Fanatics\u2019 Senseless Lynching"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY DR. TILAK S. FERNANDO<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"Sialkot<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\nCoffin carrying the remains of Priantha Kumara at<\/strong> BIA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priyantha Kumara, a Sri\nLankan Export Manager, employed by Rajko Industries, Sialkot, became an Islamic\nfanatic group\u2019s victim on 3 December 2021. Police records revealed that he was\nbeaten with sticks, fists and kicks by a group consisting of dozens of\nassemblies before being dragged to the road outside the factory and set on fire\nalive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajko Industries\nmanufactured cricket jerseys and other gear for the Pakistan cricket team in\nT20 World Cup. Priyantha Kumara was the youngest of six siblings. His mother\nwas not told how he was lynched and later burnt alive. Kamal, his brother, told\nthe international media how they concealed the\nfacts from their mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His family informed his\nmother that his death was due to an accident and kept her mother away from\nsocial media and television. His mother is 80 years old, suffering from\ndiabetes and hypertension. Priyantha\u2019s family members said they were unable to\nexplain to her what exactly happened. The mother was repeatedly weeping from\nthe moment she heard about Priyantha\u2019s death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family told the mother\nthey did not know the exact details about how the accident occurred. Priyantha\nand his brother Kumara have lived in Pakistan for over ten years. They seemed\nto have no complaints whatsoever while living in Pakistan. Kumara told the\ninternational Media that many Pakistani friends made condolence calls. They\nall sympathised with me and were crying and ashamed to call themselves\nPakistanis.\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

B<\/strong>laspheme means death <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priyantha Kumara was\nalleged of blasphemy by Pakistan\u2019s mob leader. The punishment for blasphemy is\ndeath under a Pakistani law made by President Zia ul Haq in the 1980s. This\nincident of Priyantha goes down in the annals of modern-day international\nhistory as the worst act of criminality. According to Aljazeera TV, blasphemy\nallegations have led to extrajudicial murders or mob lynching, with at least 80\npeople killed in such attacks since 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The savage killing of\nPriyantha Kumara shocked Pakistan. Religious leaders, civil society and\npoliticians in Pakistan utterly condemned the lynching. On Sunday, 5 December,\ncivil society groups demonstrated against Priyantha\u2019s killing in Sialkot. It\nappears to be an excuse for radicals to gain support and mileage for the\nlynching. A recent news flash in a newspaper disclosed how the massacre of\nPriyantha purposely prevented the perpetrators from manslaughter and the\ninvestigations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priyantha Kumara worked in\nSialkot in Pakistan for over ten years. Protesters accused him of defacing\nposters bearing Prophet Muhammad\u2019s name and throwing it into a trash bin.\nAnother viewpoint was that he was a foreigner and may not have comprehended\nUrdu lettering on the poster! Nevertheless, the whole world condemned the\nlynching and setting fire to Priyantha\u2019s body in a public place witnessed by\nhundreds of spectators, who did not utter a word about the slaughter, except\nfor one decent Pakistani who tried to shield Priyantha and suffered<\/em>.\nPakistan Government paid the highest honour to the man who attempted to rescue\nPriyantha Kumara from mob violence. Videos on YouTube shared on social media\nshowed hundreds of men and young boys gathered at the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Amnesty\nInternational <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amnesty International\nrequested an impartial inquiry into the killing. Authorities in Pakistan caught\nthe perpetrators responsible for the lynching. They emphasised the urgency\nwhere it enables such abuses and risks lives. In South Asian (Muslim) countries\nreligious violence in connection with blasphemy rose in recent years,\nespecially with the rising of the far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).\nThe Pakistani authorities made an immediate investigation and arrested several\nkey suspects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Pakistani\nreligious scholars expressed sympathy on behalf of the entire Muslim community\nin Pakistan. They declared: Islam is a religion of peace that declares a\nmurder of an innocent man as the murder of all humanity.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> They further\nmentioned that Rajko Industries have pledged to bear expenses for Priyantha\nKumara\u2019s two children. The Muslim community in Pakistan said: We are satisfied\nwith measures taken by the Government of Pakistan concerning the probe and\naction against culprits regarding the lynching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The Pakistani Police\nhave so far produced eighty-five suspects in connection with the Sialkot\nlynching. Pakistan Court (ATC) initially remanded thirty-four people accused of\nthe murder of Priyantha Kumara. The judge remanded thirteen suspects and\nordered the Police to produce them in court on 3 January 2022. Meanwhile, the\nPakistani Upper House of Parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning\nthe lynching of the Sri Lankan Export Manager at Rajko industries in\nSialkot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chairman of the\nParliamentary Committee said he would send a delegation of senators to Sri\nLanka to hand over the parliamentary resolution to Priyantha Kumar\u2019s family ( a\ncopy of the senate resolution<\/em>) and express their deepest sympathies to the\nfamily. He further added that the religion of Islam had nothing to do with\nlynching, and several people interpreted blasphemy to suit themselves.<\/em>\u201d\nThe Prime Ministerial representative visited the Sri Lanka High Commission in\nIslamabad to reveal how Priyantha\u2019s loss was replaced by the administration of\nRajko industries in Sialkot by another Sri Lankan citizen in the factory\nstating that, we are thankful to Sri Lankans in this hour of fear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 History <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakistan is a friend of Sri\nLanka. During the LTTE separatist war that lasted for thirty years, Pakistan\nhelped Sri Lanka by supplying the much needed arms and ammunition.\nBut this incident of lynching Priyantha Kumara and burning him alive by\nreligious fanatics in Sialkot may have affected the openness between the two\ncountries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pakistan regime is\ndesperately endeavouring to alleviate any diplomatic confrontation over the\nlynching incident. His brother in Sri Lanka had a completely different\ninterpretation. He said, Priyantha lived in Pakistan for so many years, and he\nknew about the country, including the religious fanatics. Therefore, as claimed\nby the mob, there was no question of blasphemy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Another aspect\nhighlighted was the pending salary increase for the factory workers!\nNevertheless, the whole world condemned Pakistan for the brutal killing of\nPriyantha Kumara and burning his body alive in a public place. According to his\nbrother Kamal, Priyantha was not concerned about religious issues because he\nalways focussed on the workload in the factory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He never participated in\nany religious discussions. We both respect every\nreligion, and we never had any disrespectful opinions on any religion.\u201d On\nTuesday, Priyantha\u2019s post-mortem was carried out. His funeral took place in his\nnative Gampaha District. There are two factions of Islam – Wahhabism and\nSufism. Wahhabism originated in the 18th-century by an Islamic scholar, preacher\nand activist named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. For more than two centuries in\nSaudi Arabia, Wahhabism remained the dominant faith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It played a rigidly\npuritanical outlook of Islam. Wahhabis sternly believe that those who do not\nadhere to their way of tradition are heathens and their enemies. Sufism is the\nopposite of Wahhabism. Sufism is concerned with the soul or the spirit rather\nthan material things. It is opposed to Wahhabism seeking to find the absolute\ntruth in God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

tilakfernando@gmail.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Pic credit: Ceylon Today Newspaper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY DR. TILAK S. FERNANDO The Coffin carrying the remains of Priantha Kumara at BIA Priyantha Kumara, a Sri Lankan Export Manager, employed by Rajko Industries, Sialkot, became an Islamic fanatic group\u2019s victim on 3 December 2021. Police records revealed that he was beaten with sticks, fists and kicks by a group consisting of dozens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-drtilak-s-fernando"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}