Three accused allegedly involved in the Singhu border lynching case were on Sunday remanded to six days in police custody after being produced before a local court in Sonipat district.
The Haryana Police also set up special investigation teams (SIT) to probe the murder case. Narain Singh, a member of the Sikhs’ Nihang order, was arrested on Saturday
while two more Nihangs, Govind Preet Singh and Bhagwant Singh from Fatehgarh Sahib had surrendered on Friday before the Sonipat Police in connection with the lynching case.
The three accused were produced before a court in Sonipat which remanded them to six days in police custody. The police had sought remand of the accused on the ground that they have to reconstruct the crime scene, recover weapons and clothes of the accused, besides interrogating them.
Another accused in the case, identified as Sarabjitt Singh, who was nabbed by police from Sonipat’s Kundli on Friday, has already been sent to seven-day police custody by court.
The body of deceased Lakhbir Singh 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. Lakhbir, a labourer from Chima Khurd village in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district was allegedly killed by a group of Nihangs for desecrating a Sikh holy book.
The mortal remains of the victim were cremated at his native village in Tarn Taran district amid tight security in the presence of his family members on Saturday evening.
Meanwhile, a special investigation team headed by IPS officer Mayank Gupta, who is the Assistant Superintendent of Police, Kharkhoda, Sonipat, will investigate the videos of the incident which were circulating on social media while another SIT led by Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sonipat, Virender Singh will carry out the overall probe into the case.
After the murder, few videos from the farmers’ protest site at Singhu border had gone viral on social media. In a video clip, the Nihangs were seen standing near a body and were heard in the clip saying the man has been punished for desecrating a holy book of the Sikhs. The Nihangs are a Sikh order, distinguished by their blue robes and often seen carrying spears.
The lynching case has sparked outrage across the nation and also triggered calls for action to clear the farmers’ protest sites on Delhi’s borders where farmers have been camping since last November demanding scrapping of the three central farm laws.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha had on Friday distanced itself from the incident and said “both the parties to the incident”, the Nihang group and the victim, have no relation with the Morcha.
