Probe ordered after 20 tortured to death in Pakistan shrine

Probe ordered after 20 tortured to death in Pakistan shrine

April 03, 2017
A view of the cordoned off Sufi shrine where three suspects including the shrine’s keeper killed at least 20 people on the outskirts of Sargodha District in Punjab province on Sunday. — AFP
A view of the cordoned off Sufi shrine where three suspects including the shrine’s keeper killed at least 20 people on the outskirts of Sargodha District in Punjab province on Sunday. — AFP

LAHORE, Pakistan — Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday formed an inquiry committee to look into the torture and murder of 20 people at a Pakistani Sufi shrine.

Twenty people were tortured and then murdered with clubs and knives at Darbar Ali Muhammad Gujjar shrine located in Chak-95 of Sargodha, the police said on Sunday, in an attack purportedly carried out by the shrine’s keeper and several accomplices. Four others were wounded during the attack on Sunday morning at the shrine on the edge of Sargodha, a remote town in the Punjab region.

The chief minister expressed his condolences over the incident and ordered best possible medical treatment to be given to the injured.

The chief minister has announced an amount of Rs500,000 for families of each of the deceased person, while Rs200,000 has been announced for each injured person.

The main culprit, Abdul Waheed, called on the people to visit the shrine and then attacked them with his accomplices, said Liaqat Ali Chattha, deputy commissioner for the area.

“As they kept arriving, they were torturing and murdering them,” Chattha told Geo TV.

Pervaiz Haider, a doctor in a Sargodha hospital, said most of the dead were hit on the back of the neck.

“There are bruises and wounds inflicted by a club and dagger on the bodies of victims,” he told Reuters.

Police arrested Waheed. During his interrogation, the shrine keeper told police he believed his victims were out to kill him, said Zulfiqar Hameed, Regional Police Officer for Sargodha.

“Waheed told police that he killed the people because they had tried to kill him by poisoning him in the past, and again they were there to kill him,” Hameed told Reuters.

Six of the deceased belonged to the same family.

Sargodha Deputy Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatta told Geo News, that Waheed and his accomplices first intoxicated the disciples then tortured them with machetes and batons, eventually killing them.

The DC added he believed Abdul Waheed suffers from a ‘critical mental disorder’.

Two women and as many men managed to escape in an injured condition from the shrine. One of them reported the horrendous crime to locals who then informed the police. The injured were admitted at district headquarters hospital. One of the women tried to say something but could not speak much. — Agencies


April 03, 2017
HIGHLIGHTS