20 People Murdered At Punjab Sufi Shrine

MEP: At least twenty people, including six members of a family, were murdered and four others wounded at a Pakistani Sufi shrine by its “psychotic and paranoid” custodian, police said.

Four women were among those killed at the Shrine of Mohammad Ali Gujjar in Pakistan’s Punjab province, according to police, who said they had arrested the shrine’s custodian.

“The 50-year-old shrine custodian Abdul Waheed has confessed that he killed these people because he feared that they had come to kill him,” regional police chief Zulfiqar Hameed told news agency AFP.

The shrine was run by a Sufi saint, Muhammad Ali Gujjar, who was not there on the day of the murders.

One survivor told police Mr Waheed had called followers into his chamber one by one, and gave them poisoned food.

Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif has asked for a police report on the investigation within 24 hours, a senior government official said.

Liaquat Ali Chatta, government administrator of the area, said the custodian, Waheed is a government employee and seemed “mentally unstable.”

Visiting the shrines and offering alms to the poor – and cash to the custodians – remains very popular in Pakistan, where many believe this will help get their prayers answered.