Sacrilege row: 3rd accused surrenders before police

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Amritsar, May 24

Gurmukh Singh, the third suspect in Dharamkot village sacrilege instance, on Tuesday surrendered before the police. He was evading arrest for the past three days.

Earlier, the police had arrested his father Massa Singh and brother Pargat Singh in the case. The police have booked the three persons for allegedly committing sacrilege at a gurdwara in Dharamkot village falling under the Bhindi Saida police station on Saturday.

The SGPC had condemned the incident and sought the intervention of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and the state DGP for probing the incident to give punishment to the culprits and ascertain the actual cause behind this.

The accused was identified from CCTV camera footage. A case under Sections 295-A and 120-B of the IPC has been registered against them. Dharminder Singh, a resident of Chak Kamal Khan village, had told the police that he performed sewa in the gurdwara. He said around 3.10pm on Saturday when he lifted Rumala Sahib (cloth used to cover the holy scripture) he was shocked to see that an unidentified person had damaged its Ang (pages) with knife. He immediately raised an alarm following which people gathered near the gurdwara. In the presence of granthi (priest) Jasbir Singh, and people, CCTV footage was scrutinised. In the footage, they saw Massa Singh, who used to perform the sewa of distributing prasad in the gurdwara, committing the sacrilege. Sub-Inspector Tejinder Singh, investigating officer in the case, confirmed that Gurmukh Singh had surrendered before the police. He said he would be produced in a court tomorrow. All the accused were baptised Sikhs. Massa Singh wanted his sons to be adjusted in the gurdwara in place of the present granthi. Therefore, he committed the sacrilege in order to falsely implicate him in this case.