Singhu lynching: Nihang held; Haryana CM Khattar, Mayawati condemn incident

Singh was taken into custody after he surrendered to the police on Friday night for his alleged role in the lynching, said police. He has been sent to seven-day police remand.

Police sources said Singh had come to Singhu border when the contingent of Nihang Sikhs had arrived there in the first week of December last year. At the border, he was the leader of a unit that tended to the horses.

Jashandeep Singh Randhawa, superintendent of police, (SP), Sonepat, said, “One Nihang Sikh has been taken into custody. He will be produced in the court later in the day. We are probing his role in the murder. The claim of desecration of holy book at the Singhu border is yet to be verified. It is a matter of investigation.”

In several videos that emerged on Friday night, Sarvjit Singh took responsibility for allegedly killing Lakhbir Singh, alleging that he had desecrated the holy book.

On Friday, the police had said that a preliminary probe had suggested that Nihangs had killed Lakhbir Singh, a Dalit Sikh from Cheema Kalan village in Tarn Taran, Punjab, as they suspected him of desecrating the holy book at a gurudwara at Singhu border.

Police had registered an FIR against unknown persons on Friday on charges of murder and common intention. Police had said that they had received information around 5 am on Friday that Nihangs had hanged and tied a person to a barricade and his hand was chopped off. When the police reached the spot, the victim had died. The Nihang Sikhs and protesters had initially refused to hand over the body to the police.

In several videos of the brutal lynching, the injured man could be purportedly seen lying in a pool of blood, with one arm tied to a rope and his chopped off left hand next to his face, as several men stood over and questioned him about his identity. In one of the videos, he could be seen tied upside down while blood oozed from his chopped off wrist. He is seen pleading with protesters to untie him.

Mayawati, Khattar condemn killing

Taking to twitter, BSP supremo Mayawati on Saturday called the killing of the Dalit man “extremely sad and shameful.” She also called for strong action against the accused, urging the police to “take the incident seriously.”

“The BSP demands that the Dalit chief minister of Punjab should give a financial assistance of Rs 50 lakh and a government job to the aggrieved family, as was done in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident,” the BSP chief tweeted in Hindi.

1. दिल्ली सिंघु बॉर्डर पर पजंाब के एक दलित युवक की नृशंस हत्या अति-दुखद व शर्मनाक। पुलिस घटना को गंभीरता से लेते हुए दोषियों के विरुद्ध सख्त कार्रवाई करे तथा पंजाब के दलित सीएम भी लखीमपुर खीरी की तरह पीड़ित परिवार को 50 लाख रुपए की मदद व सरकारी नौकरी दें, बीएसपी की यह माँग।

— Mayawati (@Mayawati) October 16, 2021

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, too, condemned the incident while addressing media persons after chairing a district grievance redressal meeting in Gurgaon on Saturday, calling it “a brutal murder.”