ISLAMABAD: A shrine custodian killed over 20 people and injured four others, in a village in Sargodha district, Punjab. Deputy Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatta said that custodian Abdul Waheed, a government employee, killed devotees at the Ali Ahmed Gujjar, using machetes and clubs. He said the killer was believed to be mentally unstable.
An injured woman who arrived at the district hospital, reported the killings. She was one of the only four survivors who managed to flee from the crime scene. "Acting on her information, a heavy contingent of police rushed to the shrine and arrested Waheed and his two associates and shifted them to an undisclosed location," Chatta said. Survivors informed that Waheed called the devotees via telephone to his room one by one and offered them an intoxicating substance before removing their clothes, and used a dagger and sticks to kill his victims. Citing a doctor at Sargodha hospital, the Geo TV said that the victims were murdered nude and the bodies bore multiple stab wounds and blunt weapons marks.
Locals said Waheed usually visited the shrine twice a month and used to torture devotees by setting them on fire, which he called a healing process. “We heard people screaming whenever he (Waheed) was at the shrine,” said the residents. Among the dead, 11 were from Sargodha, two from Islamabad, two from Layyah and one each from Mianwali and Pir Mahal. A dead body of one woman could not be identified.
Police official Mazhar Shah said that the motive behind the crime has not been ascertained. The shrine was built about two years ago on the grave of local religious leader Ali Mohamamd Gujjar. People would come to the dargah for “cleansing” their sins and allow the caretakers to beat them with clubs. Chatta quoted Waheed as saying that he killed his disciples because, according to him, they poisoned his spiritual leader, Ali Muhammad, to death two years ago. Waheed told the police that had he not killed them, they would have poisoned him too, Geo TV reported.
The shrine was cordoned off for a search operation. Punjab CM Shehbaz Sharif has summoned a report on the incident from IG Police within 24 hours. He also announced an amount of Rs 500,000 for families of each of the deceased person, while Rs 200,000 for each injured person.
