Two Sikh youth riding motorcycle appearing to be baptised Sikhs shot a sacrilege-accused woman, Balwinder Kaur (47), in full public view outside Gurdwara Manji Sahib at Alamgir village near here on Tuesday morning.
Accused of desecrating Sri Guru Granth Sahib last October, the woman from Ludhiana’s Ghawaddi village was now out on bail. The shooters raised the gun at her younger son, three-wheeler driver Ranjodh Singh (25), too, but it misfired. The fleeing murderers dropped a letter saying they had avenged sacrilege. Police concealed the letter. In the 20 shops around the gurdwara, they found no witness.
Before killing Balwinder Kaur, the men — later indentified from the security-camera footage as Gurpreet Singh Jagowal of Amargarh of Sangrur and Nihal Singh of Patiala — engaged the woman and her son in conversation for about 15 minutes outside the shrine, which suggests that they knew her.
The Dehlon police registered a murder case against Jagowal and Nihal.
“They called the woman to the gurdwara on the pretext of helping her out with money,” said police commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh. “When she got in at 8am, Jagowal and Nihal, who had been waiting for 30 minutes, sat in Ranjoth’s three-wheeler. After a while, they took out what seemed like country-made pistols and shot the woman in the chest and got away on a white motorcycle parked a few metres away.”
After the sacrilege incident, the woman and her son had taken shelter with her daughter, Rajwant Kaur of Jawaddi, and sister, Amarjit Kaur of Dholewal. The accused had given her some money two months ago and promised to rehabilitate her.
Youth surrender before court
Three days after gunning down 47-year-old Balwinder Kaur, who is accused of desecrating Sri Guru Granth Sahib in October last, two accused- Gupreet Singh Jagowal of Sangrur and Nihal Singh of Patiala- surrendered at a local court on Friday. They were sent to police remand till August 3.
Coming out of the court, Gurpreet said, “We have no regrets over what we did. We wanted to take revenge for the disrespect done to our Gurus. We have also come to know that some people are collecting money in our names. We request NRIs and others not to give them any money.”
Speaking to media, Ludhiana police commissioner JS Aulakh said, “We identified the accused within hours of incident through CCTV footage and raids were ongoing. It was only because of the pressure exerted by the police that both surrendered today. Now, we will question them to bring out the facts.”
A local leader of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), Jagowal is resident of Amargarh in Sangrur. He is also a member of the Muslim-Sikh Front of Punjab and also runs his own “parchar group” and a “gatka akhara”.
Balwinder Kaur cremated
Meanwhile, Balwinder Kaur, who was facing trial for sacrilege and shot dead by two Sikh youth, was cremated near Gill Road today. The residents of her native village Ghawaddi had reportedly refused to cremate her at their village. Only a few people attended her cremation.