Sri Lanka’s Parliament and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday condemned the brutal lynching of a Sri Lankan national in Pakistan and hoped that Prime Minister Imran Khan will keep his commitment to bring all those involved to justice and ensure the safety of the rest of the island nation’s expat workers.
In a grisly incident on Friday, Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, who was in his 40s, was lynched and his body burnt by angry supporters of a hardline Islamist party which attacked a garment factory in Pakistan’s Punjab province over blasphemy allegations.
Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan Christian from Kandy city, was working as the general manager of the garment factory in Sialkot district, some 100 kms from Lahore.
New footage shot prior to the lynching showed a colleague trying to protect the victim on the roof of the factory where he had fled while the mob of around two dozen people slowly grew in number.
In the video, some among the mob can be heard chanting slogans and saying “he (the manager) will not escape today,” while the colleague tried to shield Diyawadana with his body, who clung to the man’s legs, the Dawn newspaper reported.
The workers had later overpowered the colleague and dragged Diyawadana out on the road and tortured him with kicks, stones and iron rods, killing him on the spot. The mob had then set the body on fire.
The Sri Lankan Government and the Opposition were united in urging the Sri Lankan authorities to have talks with Islamabad to ensure the safety of the rest of the Sri Lankan workers in Pakistan.
Pakistan Prime Minister Khan said he had spoken to Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa “to convey our nation’s anger and shame to people of Sri Lanka at the vigilante killing of Priyantha Diyawadana in Sialkot”.
“Spoke to Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa today in UAE to convey our nation’s anger & shame to people of Sri Lanka at vigilante killing of Priyantha Diyawadana in Sialkot. I informed him 100+ ppl arrested & assured him they would be prosecuted with full severity of the law,” he said in a tweet on Saturday.
Khan’s response came after Sri Lankan Prime Minister Rajapaksa said in a tweet that he was shocked to see the “brutal and fatal” attack on Diyawadana by extremist mobs in Pakistan.
“My heart goes out to his wife and family. #SriLanka and her people are confident that PM @ImranKhanPTI will keep to his commitment to bring all those involved to justice,” he said.