Chandigarh: Police in Phagwara in Kapurthala district have arrested a Nihang Sikh for allegedly murdering a man at the historical Gurudwara Sri Chaura Khooh Sahib in the wee hours of Tuesday. According to the police, the accused Ramandeep Singh alias Manglu Math suspected that the victim had come to the gurudwara intending to commit sacrilege.
Math recorded a ‘confession video’ of the victim before allegedly killing him and recording his own ‘confession’.
Inspector Gaurav Dhir, station house officer (SHO) of Phagwara city police station, told ThePrint that a case of sacrilege has been registered against the victim and another against Math charging the Nihang Sikh under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC.
The victim, he added, is yet to be identified. “No ID proof has been recovered from his body nor has any family member contacted the police till now identifying him.”
Confirming that Math had been arrested, he told ThePrint: “Math has been involved in some other criminal activities as well and there are cases registered against him, the details of which we are gathering.”
This is the first incident this year of “instant justice” being doled out on suspicion of sacrilege in Punjab, which has seen a steady increase in such incidents these past few years. According to NCRB data, the crime rate — crime rate per lakh population — for IPC sections 295 (defiling place of worship), 296 (disturbing religious assembly) and 297 (trespass to wound religious feelings) was highest in Punjab in 2022 at 0.7 percent.
How events unfolded
Giving details of Tuesday’s incident, police sources told ThePrint that the victim entered the gurudwara premises before they were closed to the public at around 10.30 pm Monday. Gurdwara authorities claimed that the staff found him hiding in one of the bathrooms around half past one. He was then questioned and allegedly admitted that he came to the gurudwara to commit sacrilege.
A purported video of the confession, which is doing the rounds on social media, shows the victim saying that a person named “Sukhi” sent him to the gurudwara to commit sacrilege or commit an obnoxious act in exchange for “Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000”. He adds that “Sukhi” told him that he would be on his own if he were to get caught. The video also shows the victim saying that he is a “hard-working” man and has not committed any sacrilege.
Police are in the process of tracing a mobile number which was found written on a small piece of paper recovered from the victim by gurudwara authorities, said SHO Dhir.
Further, gurudwara authorities told the police that Math, the Nihang Sikh from Ludhiana, was staying the night in the gurudwara. He heard about staff apprehending a man on suspicion of sacrilege and went to question him. This is when, according to gurudwara authorities, the man attacked the Nihang Sikh who took out his weapon and killed him in self-defence.
Math later recorded a video in which he admitted to having killed the “sinner”.
Gurudwara authorities also claimed they tried calling the police but could not get through and that when the man sustained fatal injuries, the head granthi (reader) along with others was on his way to a police station.
For many hours after the incident, the Nihang Sikh locked himself inside a room in the gurudwara. As news of the incident spread, several Nihangs and devotees thronged the gurudwara, followed by a large posse of police. The accused finally came out of the gurudwara only in the afternoon amid religious slogans and was presented with a siropa by Nihang Sikhs who ‘honoured’ him for allegedly killing the “sinner”.
Last week, Math had posted a video of himself at the Akal market in Ludhiana having a verbal confrontation with the police. He later claimed that he was trying to stop shopkeepers from committing sacrilege.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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