Five days after hacking of a youth to death at a gurdwara near Nijampur village after he was caught there in the wee hours of Sunday, Kapurthala Police in Punjab has arrested gurdwara caretaker Amarjit Singh while registering a case of murder, attempt to murder, assaulting police officials on duty and other offences.
Police have also recovered a pistol on the day of his murder and provisions of Arms Act have also been added in the case.Jalandhar Zone IG Gurinder Singh Dhillon said that the police would identify rest of the accused from videos and photographs.He said that FIR mentions around 100 unidentified persons and among them 25-30 were armed and in the forefront.Earlier in the day, Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi had said that investigations revealed that it was not a case of sacrilege but of murder and police would proceed accordingly.
Police officials had said on Sunday itself that there were no visible signs of sacrilege.Amarjit had raised bogey of attempt of sacrilege after he caught the youth in the wee hours of Sunday in residential portion of the gurdwara.
Amarjit not only informed police late even as police post was just across the road but also refused to hand him over to the police even as cops had rushed to the gurdwara complex.He focussed on creating frenzy and the youth was killed in the afternoon by a group of Sikh youths who entered a room by breaking open its window and attacked him with swords in police presence.It has already emerged that Amarjit had very close links with senior police officials and his son is an ASI in state Intelligence department.He is already under the scanner as he alleged attempt of sacrilege at the gurdwara in his Facebook live streaming.
While exhorting people especially the Sikh groups to rush to the gurdwara as he linked the catching of the youth to sacrilege attempt at Darbar Sahib Amritsar on Saturday evening, he did not disclose that he spotted him making tea and eating chapatis in the residential portion of his house.
The youth was booked for hurting religious sentiments on Amarjit’s complaint.Official sources have revealed that Amarjit’s son is posted at state Intelligence department headquarters at Mohali.The post-mortem of the deceased, who has remained unidentified, revealed that there was a deep cut on the front side of his neck and both his wind and food pipes were cut.His neck also had a cut on the right side.Even his skull bone was broken due to a deep cut and there was injury in brain also.His ribs were also broken and lungs were injured.
