Prime minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed his “deep disappointment” at the execution of a young Tamil man from Pakistan who was beaten and set on fire in Sri Lanka, and promised to return his body.
Shane Edward de Silva, 19, a political activist in Pakistan’s frontier areas, died at the scene of the attack on Thursday. Police said they arrested three people on suspicion of the crime.
Sherith, a fellow activist, told the Guardian he was concerned the attack might be linked to the fact de Silva was from the northern Pakistani province of the same name, which has witnessed clashes between members of the community and the Pakistan army.
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“If it is assumed that it was a political attack then Pakistan is a party to the problem as our government is also responsible for extrajudicial killings and torture by army officials,” he said.
He added that de Silva had returned to Pakistan last year after failing to obtain asylum in Sri Lanka.
“When he came back, he didn’t want to stay in Pakistan, he wanted to live in Sri Lanka and serve the poor and poor people in Sri Lanka.”
Sherith said that, apart from de Silva’s political activity, his latest concern was that “people are being taken to military courts and given death sentences”. He also accused the Sri Lankan government of shutting down shelters for asylum seekers in the country and denying them the opportunity to work.
“We come here to fight for justice,” he said. “We want the system to work and we want there to be real freedom. But the Sri Lankan government is destroying any hope of democracy for the future.”
Corruption scandals revealed this week have prompted protests throughout the country, including near the Sri Lankan embassy in Islamabad.
In his first detailed reaction to the attack, Sharif said he had spoken to the Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena and assured him that Pakistan would return de Silva’s body.
Sharif has continued a campaign of dialogue between the countries that began when he visited Sri Lanka in 2014, after a cricket series in the former colonised country. There has been no arrest for the killing of the 34-year-old secretary general of the Muslim League, Shahnawaz Ali, in April 2016.