Bathinda: Barnala Police arrested the main accused in the case of alleged sacrilege at Thikriwal village in Barnala district, taking the count of those arrested to 3.Kuldeep Singh of Thikriwal village turned out to be the main accused. He allegedly made his relative strew torn pages from Gutka Sahib at Thikriwal on the evening of January 19, when the village observed the 91st martyrdom day of freedom fighter Sewa Singh Thikriwal, to defame the village gurdwara committee.The police arrested 2 persons, including a hearing- and speech-impaired person, but villagers were agitated and demanded that the main accused behind the incident of sacrilege be unmasked. The villagers also held a protest, asking the police that if the main accused was not unmasked, they would start a bigger protest.Barnala SSP Sarfaraz Alam said the police received a complaint on Jan 20 that two persons, Jagbir Singh of Thikriwal, who is speech- and hearing-impaired, and his relative Randeep Singh of Sultanpur village in Sangrur, strew torn ang (pages) from Gutka Sahib in the village later on the night of January 19, especially choosing the day when the martyrdom day was observed in the village.Both were arrested after scanning the CCTV footage, where both were seen strewing the ang. During investigations, Kuldeep Singh from Thikriwal was nominated in the case on Friday and was arrested.It came to the fore that Kuldeep Singh had some issues with the village gurdwara committee. In the past, he won the election of the village cooperative society, and when all the winning members went to the gurdwara, they were bestowed siropa, but Kuldeep Singh failed to accompany them and failed to get siropa. He also failed to get it in the future and had some exchanges with the gurdwara committee president. He called relative Randeep Singh to Thikriwal and made both Randeep and Jagbir throw pages from Gutka Sahib in the village to defame the gurdwara committee.Hearing- and speech-impaired Jagbir is the nephew of the main accused, Kuldeep Singh. Jagbir Singh’s father was murdered some years ago, and his mother was arrested for the killing. Then Kuldeep Singh took care of him and became conversant with him in sign language.
