A SECOND member of the Sikhs’ Nihang order was arrested on Saturday in connection with the lynching of a Dalit man at the farmers’ protest site at Singhu border, even as the victim’s family questioned the attackers’ claim that he had committed sacrilege and demanded a high-level probe into the episode. The mortal remains of Lakhbir Singh were cremated at his native village in Punjab’s Tarn Taran amid tight security in the presence of his close family members. No Sikh priest was present to perform Ardas (Sikh religious prayer) and no one from his village Cheema Kalan attended the last rites. Sarabjit Singh, arrested on Friday for the brutal killing of Lakhbir Singh, was produced before a Sonepat court in Haryana and remanded in police custody for seven days. Hours later, Narain Singh was also arrested by the Amritsar Rural police at Amarkot village near Jandiala Guru in Amritsar district, police said. Narain Singh, however, claimed that he had informed the police that he was surrendering.

 

Talking to the media before his arrest, Narain Singh was unrepentant and said that Lakhbir Singh had been “punished for sacrilege”. He said that the accused in the Bargari sacrilege incident in Punjab were yet to be arrested, but now if somebody will commit ‘such a heinous crime he would be punished on the spot’. Narain Singh was given a robe of honour and a garland of currency notes by some people when he paid obeisance in the Amarkot Gurudwara before his arrest. According to police, Sarabjit Singh has claimed the involvement of a few more people in the gruesome killing, which has sparked outrage and has triggered calls for action to clear the protest sites on Delhi’s borders where farmers have been camping since last November to press for the scrapping of the Centre’s three agri laws. Farmer union leaders, however, asserted that the incident will have no impact on the agitation and said they will upgrade security by installing CCTV cameras and increasing the number of volunteers at the protest sites.

 

The body of Lakhbir Singh, a labourer from Punjab’s Tarn Taran district, was found on Friday tied to a barricade at the Singhu border with a hand chopped off and multiple wounds caused by sharp-edged weapons. Hours after the crime, Sarabjit Sigh, wearing the blue robes of the Nihang order, claimed that he had “punished” the victim for “desecrating” a Sikh holy book. Questioning his claim, the victim’s wife Jaspreet Kaur and sister Raj Kaur said Lakhbir Singh “had a deep respect for the holy Guru Granth Sahib”. “He was a god-fearing man who could not never think of desecrating a holy book... Whenever he used to go to a Gurdwara, he would pray for the well-being of his family and the society,” said Jaspreet Kaur. He had no criminal record and there was no report of him being a bad character, the victim’s family said and demanded a high-level probe into the entire episode to bring out the truth.