PAKISTAN: Relatives of two teenaged boys lynched after apparently being mistaken for robbers reflect on social forces that allowed incident to take place

Record ID: 612157

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Relatives of two teenaged boys lynched after apparently being mistaken for robbers reflect on social forces that allowed incident to take place
  • Date: 11th September 2010
  • Summary: SIALKOT, PAKISTAN (SEPTEMBER 9, 2010) (REUTERS) ALLEY OUTSIDE HOUSE OF TWO BROTHERS WHO WERE LYNCHED BY A MOB POLICEMEN POSTED OUTSIDE HOUSE SIGNBOARD OF FREE DISPENSARY BEING RUN BY BROTHERS' FAMILY. BURQA-CLAD WOMAN WALKING THROUGH ALLEY PHOTOGRAPHS OF BROTHERS LYNCHED BY MOB: MUNGEES BUTT LEFT, MUNEEB BUTT, RIGHT GRANDFATHER AND UNCLE OF BROTHERS LYNCHED BY MOB SITTING CLOSE OF GRANDFATHER CLOSE OF GRANDFATHER'S HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) MOHAMMAD ANWAR, THE 87-YEAR-OLD GRANDFATHER OF THE BROTHERS, SAYING "I have never seen such a brutal incident in my life. In the Roman empire the accused were thrown before the hungry lions and they cut them into pieces within five to ten minutes. But my grandsons were tortured for two hours constantly with stones, bricks, rods and wooden sticks. I have not seen the video. I will see them in the life thereafter."
  • Embargoed: 26th September 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Reuters ID: LVA39ZXOUPVAFRO3FCQ2NJ4O58PR
  • Story Text: Relatives of two teenaged boys lynched in Pakistan, after apparently being mistaken for robbers, reflect on the social forces that allowed the incident to take place. Their grandfather says it was worse than being thrown to the lions in a Roman circus.
    Mughees Butt won prizes for memorising the Koran, which taught him about compassion and mercy. The mob that murdered him and his brother in Pakistan's Sialkot city showed none.
    Apparently mistaken for robbers, the teenagers were beaten with sticks and rods before being strung up on metal poles in broad daylight as a large crowd and several policemen looked on.
    The two brothers, Mughees, 17, and Muneeb, 15, were killed on a busy street a few feet from an emergency rescue service centre.
    The mob pushed their way into the building and grabbed ropes used to hang the boys, and then attacked them again until their last gasps of air, witnesses said.
    The high-profile lynchings, captured on a video frequently broadcast on television news channels, highlight the extent that Pakistanis have over many years lost faith in the police and the courts to deliver justice.
    Mohammad Anwar, the grandfather of the brothers, said he had never seen such a brutal incident in his life.
    "In the Roman empire the accused were thrown before the hungry lions and they cut them into pieces within five to 10 minutes," said the 87-year-old grandfather, breaking down and shaking, "but my grandsons were tortured for two hours constantly with stones, bricks, rods and wooden sticks. I have not seen the video. I will see them in the life thereafter."
    Twenty-eight people, including eight policemen, have been arrested in connection with the Aug. 15 killings in the eastern town of Sialkot.
    "We have arrested all the accused involved in this incident. Their total number is 28. 18 are from the public and 10 from police," District Police Officer, Bilal Sidiqui, said.
    The boys from a typical middle class family had driven off on their father's red motorcycle to play cricket. They may have been mistaken for robbers who shot and killed someone and then sped away on a black motorcycle.
    Standing near a weight-lifting bench at the family home, the grandfather proudly recalls how the older boy was a fitness fanatic and wanted to join the army, while the younger one was highly intelligent and could have been an engineer.
    Many Pakistanis say the courts are riddled with graft, agonisingly slow and let too many criminals go.
    Unlike soldiers who are often seen with respect, the police are often despised as corrupt and ineffective. At times, they are accused of taking part in or encouraging extra-judicial killings.
    For the boy's uncle, Khawaja Amjad, the deaths exemplified a "cancer" spreading through Pakistan.
    "What I figure, these police people they also had the impression that they are robbers, and this is tragedy of our police department that they make wrong decision and they encourage extra-judicial killing," Amjad said.
    "They should have immediately recovered these two, even if they were robbers, or even if they were murderers, and they should have recovered them and handed them over to the court of law which is the normal course," he said.
    Critics say the killings have also compounded a sense of failure hanging over the current government, more unpopular than ever after its slow response to Pakistan's worst floods.
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