The police on Friday arrested one person and booked him for murder in connection with a group of people beating a man to death in Kapurthala , Punjab, dismissing the claim of possible sacrilege.
The incident occurred on December 19 at Nijampur village, where the person was beaten to death over an alleged attempt to commit the sacrilege of Nishan Sahib (Sikh flag) at a gurdwara.
With no evidence showing ‘sacrilege’, the police have arrested gurdwara caretaker Amarjit Singh who, on the day of the incident, stated that he saw the man (deceased) attempting to disrespect the ‘Nishan Sahib’. The man was later killed a group of people. As per the post-mortem report, the victim suffered around 30 injuries, mostly cuts likely to have been inflicted by sharp-edged weapons.
Murder charge
Jalandhar Range Inspector General of Police Gurinder Singh Dhillon said Amarjit Singh had been arrested on the charges of murder. There was no evidence of sign of sacrilege so far and the police have now amended and added new offences to the FIR, which include sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the India Penal Code. The case has been registered against close to a 100 people. Earlier, the FIR was registered under section 295 A (acts intended to outrage religious feelings) of the IPC.
Mr. Dhillon added that to ascertain the victim’s identity, his samples for DNA testing, were being examined.
In Chandigarh, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi stated that no sacrilege attempt had been found in the incident. “There’s no evidence that showed sacrilege,” he observed at a press conference.
Separately, in the Ludhiana court complex blast case, in which one person was killed and six sustained injuries - the Centre and State agencies have started a joint investigation.
Rijiju briefed in Ludhiana
Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju visited the blast site and took a briefing regarding the entire incident from Commissioner of Police Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma and other senior officers. He said the Centre and the State government were jointly probing the case.
“The Union government is taking the blast incident case very seriously as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has showed concern towards the incident. I personally spoke to the Mr. Channi over the phone today and has assured fulsome support in the investigation. An in-depth and professional probe is underway and the perpetrators of this crime would be identified soon,” he added.
Refraining from going into the technical details of the ongoing investigation, which is being carried out by all agencies, Mr. Rijiju said the case would be cracked soon and the perpetrators of this crime would be tracked down.
Mr. Channi denied that there’s was any intelligence failure, asserting that the government was alert. He said the State government had sought the Centre's support to solve the bomb explosion case. “I spoke to Union Home Minister Amit Shah after the explosion and that the Centre had sent teams for the investigation.”
Mr. Channi said there was a possibility of a link between the court blast and registering of the police case against Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Majithia.
The police recently registered a case against Mr. Majithia under different sections of Narcotic Drugs And Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, triggering a political furor ahead of the polls.
Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma said Congress-led state government has miserably failed to safeguard the security interests and the deteriorating law and order situation is alarming.
“Unfortunately, the Chief Minister is more of a poster boy and is focusing entirely on making announcements to appease the public and has ignored the security of the state. The government’s fundamental duty is to ensure law and order and not pass the buck around when it finds itself on the back foot,” said Mr. Sharma.
