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Pakistan shrine custodian kills 20 in apparent cult ritual

Pakistani volunteers and local residents gather around the bodies of people who were killed in a local shrine, outside the morgue of a hospital in Sarghodha, Pakistan, Sunday, April 2, 2017. Pakistani police say the custodian of the shrine and his accomplices have murdered 20 devotees in eastern Punjab province as part of a group cult ritual. (AP Photo/M.I. Haq)
Pakistani volunteers and local residents gather around the bodies of people who were killed in a local shrine, outside the morgue of a hospital in Sarghodha, Pakistan, Sunday, April 2, 2017. Pakistani police say the custodian of the shrine and his accomplices have murdered 20 devotees in eastern Punjab province as part of a group cult ritual. (AP Photo/M.I. Haq) Pakistani volunteers and local residents gather around the bodies of people who were killed in a local shrine, outside the morgue of a hospital in Sarghodha, Pakistan, Sunday, April 2, 2017. Pakistani police say the custodian of the shrine and his accomplices have murdered 20 devotees in eastern Punjab province as part of a group cult ritual. (AP Photo/M.I. Haq)

By Associated Press 2 min read

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) – The custodian of a local shrine and his accomplices murdered 20 devotees after intoxicating them in eastern Punjab province, police said Sunday, in what officials are calling a cult ritual.

Senior police officer Mohammad Bilal said that the shrine custodian in a village near the city of Sargodha, some 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Multan, was arrested Sunday morning along with four others for killing worshippers with batons and knives. Bilal said another four people remain wounded in critical condition.

A Doctor at Sargodha hospital, told the Geo TV channel, that the victims were murdered nude and the bodies bore multiple stab wounds and blunt weapons marks.

Liaquat Ali Chatta, government administrator of the area, said the custodian, Abdul Waheed, and his four alleged accomplices have been arrested and the matter is being investigated. Chatta said Waheed is a retired government employee and seemed “mentally unstable.”

Chatta said the custodian was allegedly in the practice of “beating and torturing” devotees to “cleanse” them. He said Waheed had confessed to the murders.