Nihang kills youth over ‘sacrilege’ bid in Phagwara gurdwara

Ashok Kaura

Phagwara, January 16

A Nihang killed a youth on the premises of Gurdwara Chhevin Patshahi at Bansanwala Bazaar here over an alleged attempt of sacrilege early this morning.

Controversial past

Nihang Ramandeep Singh Mangu Math, who hails from Ludhiana, has had a controversial past. He has several criminal cases lodged against him. He had beaten up a woman a week ago and was arrested last year for a clash with another Nihang in Amritsar. He had also threatened travel agents across Doaba to return the money paid to them by complainants.

The incident took place around 3 am, following which Nihang Ramandeep Singh Mangu Math recorded his video of confession and then killed the youth with a sharp-edged weapon.

He even made a video after the murder, saying that he had killed him, with the body of the unidentified youth in the backdrop and posted the same on his Instagram page. Both video posts were deleted later, but by that time these had already become viral.

Even though senior police officials had reached the spot around 6 am. It took them over five hours to find and arrest him as he had locked himself in a room on the premises. During this time members of some Sikh organisations assembled there. After a lot of parleys, DIG S Bhoopathi, Kapurthala SSP Vatsala Gupta, Jalandhar SSP (Rural) Mukhwinder Bhullar and SP Manpreet Singh finally managed to bring him out.

Upon the insistence of the Sikh bodies, the Kapurthala police did not book him for murder but under Sections 304 and 295-A of the IPC. The body of the victim was sent to Jalandhar Civil Hospital for a post-mortem examination.

The incident took place when a youth came to the gurdwara last night around 10.30 pm and entered a washroom. He did not open the door of the washroom for a long time. Getting suspicious, a head granthi of the gurdwara caught him, locked him inside a room of the gurdwara and went to Phagwara City police station to lodge a complaint. Math, who too was there, went inside the room and caught hold of the victim. He made a confessional video of the victim, who said that a person named Sukhi had sent him for desecration by offering him Rs 2,000-3,000.

He also told him that he was asked to write abusive words in the gurdwara. The video shows two more persons standing with the Nihang in the room.

ADGP (Law and Order) Gurinder Singh Dhillon said that there were no signs of desecration in the gurdwara. He said that the Nihang would be produced in the court tomorrow. He said that a team headed by Phagwara SP Gurpreet Singh had been formed for further investigations and SSP Gupta would supervise it.

On not adding murder charge, police officials said that the FIR had been lodged as per the statement for now.