LAHORE: The Punjab police claimed on Monday to have arrested six more primary suspects in the lynching of a middle-aged in Khanewal district on Saturday, taking the total tally of key suspects to 21.

According to the official twitter account of the Punjab police, a spokesperson said that with the latest arrests, the number of primary suspects in custody has risen to 21 while a total of 102 have been detained so far and are being interrogated for their suspected involvement in the crime. He said that CCTV footages showed that the victim reportedly claimed innocence but the villagers first tied him up to a tree and then hit him with bricks until he died. “The six primary suspects arrested on Monday could be seen in a video provoking the mob as well as torturing the victim with bricks and sticks,” he added.

The spokesperson said the prime suspects had been charged with sections of terrorism and heinous crimes in the first information report (FIR). “The identification and arrest of more suspects are underway with the help of available footage and evidence, he said, adding that police teams conducted raids throughout the previous night while a secret operation was also underway.

The incident had drawn widespread condemnation from political circles with the prime minister tweeting on Sunday: “We have zero tolerance for anyone taking the law into their own hands and mob lynching will be dealt with the full severity of the law.”

The killing comes on the heels of an identical incident in Sialkot where a Sri Lankan engineer was lynched by factory workers on Dec 3 last year on blasphemy allegation. The spokesperson said Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and IG Police Rao Sardar Ali were personally supervising the investigation of the tragic incident.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022