The protest against the murder of Manohar Lal, a prominent member of Dera Sacha Sauda and father of the defendant of sacrilege, Jatinder Pal aka Jimmy, in the Bhagta Bhaika village in Bathinda entered on the third day of Monday. Supporters have refused to incinerate the body and continue the dharna, keeping the corpse in a deep freezer in the middle of the road.
The Facebook account of the Sukha Gill Lamme gang, which claimed responsibility for the murder in a post, has been deleted. The gang had claimed to have eliminated Jatinder Pal for four incidents of sacrilege.
“Let those who have a dharna in Salabatpura also tell what a great feat he had done to make them have the dharma. He did not one, but four sacrileges. We are not against the followers of Dera or any religion. Our enemy is the one who is against the Sikh community and disrespects our Guru. We will do the same for anyone who does this. If Guru Sahib gives me another chance, I will do it again, ”the post reads.
Hundreds of Dera supporters are converging on the main Salabatpura-Bajakhana highway to demand the arrest of the accused. Protesters have alleged that the earlier murder of Dera Premi Mahinderpal Singh Bittu and now Manohar Lal is part of a conspiracy.
All attempts by the SSP district police chief Bhupinder Singh Virk to persuade the protesters to incinerate the deceased have so far failed. Virk had held two meetings with the 45-member Dera committee on Sunday night.
Salabatpura is the state headquarters of Dera Sacha Sauda. Dera’s supporters brought the body from Bathinda Civil Hospital to the protest site on Saturday and blocked the main Barnala-Bhagta road. According to sources, the police have sought a list of gun licenses issued to Dera supporters.
In August 2015, several incidents of violence were reported in the region immediately after the IWC court convicted Dera’s boss, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. Manohar Lal was the father of the 2015 sacrilege accused of Jatinderbir Arora, aka Jimmy, or Jatinderbir Jimmy. Jimmy was arrested at the Delhi airport in connection with a Guru Granth Sahib sacrilege incident in 2015 in the village of Gurusar near Bhagta Bhaika in Bathinda.
An FIR was registered at the Baja Khana Police Station on June 2, 2015, as a ‘Bir’ from Guru Granth Sahib was allegedly stolen from a gurdwara in Burj Jawahar Singh Wala. Pages torn from the “bir” were found in Bargari on 12 October. In subsequent protests, two Sikh men were shot dead by police in the village of Behbal Kalan on October 14. Up to 157 pages of the same “Bir” were found scattered in the village on 20 October, which were stolen from a gurdwara in the village of Burj Jawahar Singh Wala in Faridkot.
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