COLOMBO: The remains of a Sri Lankan manufacturing manager were laid to rest in Sri Lanka on Wednesday, December 8, after he was slain in a horrifying and fatal mob attack in Pakistan after being accused of blasphemy.
Last Friday, Priyantha Kumara was tortured and burned by a mob of industrial workers in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
On Monday, December 6, his remains were transferred to Sri Lanka and interred at his home in the Gampaha area.
“We don’t know how to rationalise what happened, and it’s a disaster,” Wasantha Kumara, the oldest brother, told Reuters.
Before Kumara’s casket was taken to the local cemetery, people took part in a Buddhist burial service.
“Killing an animal makes us think twice as a human being.” We won’t kill an animal like this, either, since it’s a horrific murder, where he was beaten to death and then burned, and some say people are saying it happened while he was alive,” his brother added.
His wife and two boys are the only survivors of the factory manager.
More than 100 people have been arrested, according to a Punjab police spokeswoman, including the main suspect, who was seen in videos torturing the Sri Lankan manager and inciting people against him.
In Muslim-majority Pakistan, mob killings over claims of blasphemy – a crime that carries the death penalty – have been common.
The assassination came just weeks after the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan movement, a religious group created in 2015 to counter conduct it considers disrespectful to Islam, staged days of violent rallies.
