Four held for killing Dalit man over a goat in Punjab’s Sangrur

Police on Friday arrested four persons for killing a Dalit man, over an issue pertaining to a goat at Mauran village in Sangrur.

Police said that a goat of the victims went inside the fields of the accused and when the victims reached their fields, the accused chased them by car, made them hostage and thrashed them for hours. One of the victims, Boota Singh, died on Thursday, while an injured Daman is receiving treatment at Sangrur civil hospital. The incident took place on Wednesday.

According to the police, the accused have been identified as Maggar Singh, Sarabjeet Singh, residents of village Mauran; Gurdas Singh, resident of the village Sheron and Gurpreet Singh of village Baghroul.

Senior superintendent of police, Surendra Lamba, said, “We are investigating to find the motive behind the crime as this is not the case of hate crime. Out of the four accused, Gurpreet Singh is also Dalit.” He further informed that a case under Section 302 and SC/ST Act was registered at Chhajli police station.

The SSP said that Boota Singh, Ramkaran Singh and Damanjeet Singh had gone to graze their goats when one of the goats went missing. The trio reached the fields of the accused to find the missing goat. Meanwhile, the accused launched an attack on them. The victims managed to escape from the fields on a motorcycle but the accused chased them in car and caught them. Ramkaran Singh managed to escape but the attackers took other victims to their home and thrashed them.

“When the victims were badly injured, accused called us and told that they have caught thiefs. But we found that they were trying to mislead us. Boota Singh died on Thursday while Daman is admitted at Sangrur Civil hospital,” said SSP.