A newly-surfaced footage of Friday’s tragic incident, in which a Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara was lynched by a mob over blasphemy allegations, showed that a fellow worker tried to save the victim from the enraged mob.
The attackers alleged that Kumara had ordered to remove all stickers in the factory before the visit of a foreign delegation. This led to the workers at the factory accusing him of committing blasphemy. The angry workers staged a protest at the site, blocking the road, and were joined by a large number of locals.
As the crowd of demonstrators grew in number, Kumara fled to seek refuge at the roof of the factory. The footage, obtained by Dawn, shows the crowd pursuing him at the roof, where a colleague tries to save him.
The footage shows attackers overpowering the colleague and pulling away Kumara. He was subsequently tortured with brick and iron rods until he died, after which his body was set on fire. The footage shows some in the crowd shouting religious slogans.
The episode has generated a lot of anger among citizens, on social media, with many blaming the government’s policies of appeasing extremist groups for a rise in incidents of violence.
