Imran Khan Calls Sri Lanka's President to Assure Justice for Sialkot Lynching

The victim's wife pleaded for justice while Pakistan's High Commission in Colombo witnessed protests.

Imran Khan

(Photo Courtesy: Instagram)

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has promised Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa that swift justice will be delivered in the horrific lynching case of the Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, and that there will be no mercy shown to the mob that killed him over allegations of blasphemy, The Indian Express reported.

In a telephone call, Khan told Rajapaksa that 113 have been arrested in the case until now, including 13 prime suspects in the horrific attack.

In what Prime Minister khan referred to as a "day of shame," Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan factory manager in Sialkot, Punjab Province, was lynched on 3 December, and his body burnt by the supporters of an Islamist party called the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).

Khan had tweeted after the incident, "Let there be no mistake all those responsible will be punished with full severity of the law."

The post-mortem report has confirmed that Diyawadana was tortured to an extreme degree and that his skull was broken, and 99 percent of the tissues on his body had been damaged due to burn wounds, according to ANI.

Diyawadana's wife has pleaded for justice, saying that her husband was a "very innocent man."

“I got to know about the brutal murder of my husband from the news, later I saw this on the internet as well", BBC Sinhala reported.

"I request leaders of Sri Lanka and Pakistan to do justice for my husband and two children, by bringing the perpetrators to justice," she added.

The Pakistani High Commission in Colombo was surrounded by large crowd on 5 December to protest against the gruesome lynching.

Diyawadana, who left behind his wife and two children, was working as the manager of a factory in Sialkot for almost last 10 years.

(With inputs from The Indian Express, ANI, and BBC Sinhala.)