In a pattern from Red Fort violence to gang rape to hacking, Rakesh Tikait and Yogendra Yadav distanced themselves from the crime and evaded responsibility.
Police arrested one Nihang, Saravjeet Singh, on Friday (October 15) in the Singhu border hacking case.
On Friday (October 15) morning, the Haryana Police recovered a chopped body hanging from a police barricade at Singhu Border, where farmers have blocked the road for months now.
The victim has been identified as a 36-year-old labourer Lakhbir Singh from Tarn Taran in Punjab. He was a Dalit.
The Nihang justified the killing on the ground that Lakhbir had desecrated the holy books of Sikhs, Guru Granth Sahib.
Hours before the police arrested Saravjeet, he addressed a press conference with other Nihang in which he expressed no regret for what he had done. On the contrary, he said he would do it over and over again if need be.
In a viral video clip, Nihang could be seen surrounding Lakhbir and torturing him. His one hand was chopped off, and he was hanged on a police barricade for public display.
When the police arrived Friday (October 15) morning to remove the body, Nihang did not initially allow the police to do their job.
Later in the day, in a joint press conference, Yogendra Yadav and Rakesh Tikait distanced themselves from the crime, evading its responsibility.
In January this year, when the tractor march to Delhi had turned violent, and rioting happened in Lal Qila, Yogendra Yadav and Rakesh Tikait had evaded responsibility then too.
A young ‘farmer’ had died after the tractor he was driving overturned. The rioting farmers vandalized inside Lal Qila on January 26. The tricolour was removed from the ramparts of the Lal Qila.
Now, it has become a very standard pattern.
A young girl from Kolkata had come to express solidarity with the protesting farmers in April this year. At the Tikri border, she was gang-raped by the protesting farmers. On April 30, she succumbed in a hospital.
Yogendra Yadav was aware of the gang rape, but decided to remain silent. In a press conference in May, he admitted he was aware of the crime and was in touch with the perpetrators.
“She told me she had been harassed and raped after she left for Tikri. On the train, one of the accused grabbed her hand and forcefully kissed her. After she came to Tikri, she was staying in the tent of the Kisan Social Army, where two of the men who had accompanied her raped her. She told me that they had been blackmailing her,” Hindustan Times had quoted the victim’s father.
In June this year, the protesting farmers had burnt alive a 42-year-old farmer at Tikri border after sprinkling kerosene on him. Yadav and Tikait had evaded responsibility, even then.
Blasphemy is becoming a very serious concern in Punjab. There have been at least six cases in the last three months where violence has erupted in the name of blasphemy. Victims have mostly been Dalits.
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