What ensued, as told by Survivors
Devotees came into the Sufi Shrine in Punjab Province as was their habit.
A survivor named Ahmad said that the custodian of the shrine, Abdul Waheed, called each of them in turn into his chamber and offered them food. The food is said to have been poisoned, but the local Police Chief stated that there is need to wait for forensic evidence to confirm or refute this claim.
As Waheed met with his followers, another survivor said, he beat them with a club and maimed them using a dagger. This statement was confirmed by the medical examiner, Dr. Pervaiz Haider. The ME remarked, “There were marks on each of the bodies brought in, most of them concentrated on the neck area. The injuries are consistent with ones a dagger and a club would make.” Haider gave this information to a reporter from Reuters.
There are differing accounts as to what happened after the spiritual leader beat and killed nineteen people in the shrine, while one died upon arrival at a local hospital.
In one eyewitness account, the alarm was raised by a woman who had been going into the chamber and discovered the torture that was being carried out. The woman was injured by Waheed and his five accomplices. Another eyewitness account details how children made the other devotees aware of what was happening. ”The children saw what the custodian Waheed and his men were doing in the chamber, and they told the adults. The more mature devotees then set upon Waheed and his accomplices before the police arrived,” delineated the other survivor.
What the Authorities say about the incident
The police released a statement after the attack confirming the deaths of twenty of the devotees from the shrine and the injury of at least four other people.
“Our prime suspect is the custodian of the shrine, Abdul Waheed,” confirmed Deputy Police Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha. Speaking to the press, Chattha detailed that the people who frequented the shrine told chilling stories about the occurrences that usually took place there.
Waheed appointed himself the leader of the Sufi shrine after its construction was complete. Chattha said that many of the devotees who had come forward confessed that Waheed had a tendency to hit them during the shrine’s ‘healing’ sessions. Waheed would beat his disciples at least twice a week.
Additionally, Waheed stripped his congregants and tore their clothes before burning them with what one survivor called ‘red-hot iron.’
Police Chief Zulfiqar Hameed called the suspect ‘mentally unstable’ after the arrest was made. “Hameed confessed to killing the people in the shrine because he was convinced that they had been called to kill him.” Hameed also claimed that there was a dead saint behind the shrine which had been poisoned, thus the need to kill him. The allusion to saints is based on the belief the Sufi have that saints exist and can intercede for man to God.
Police are not sure of the motive but remain convinced that Hameed had committed the heinous act to finish off any individuals he thought rivaled his claim to custodianship of the shrine.
