Early in the morning around 3-3:30, an unfortunate incident takes place where a Dalit youth is killed by the Nihangs on the pretext of sacrilege of the holy book at one of the tents at Singhu border. The Nihangs cut off the youth’s arm and tied him to a barricade. The police take the body for postmortem, register a case, and one of the accused surrenders by late evening. SKM in its press release and 32 farm unions from Punjab in their press conference distance themselves from the incident and both parties. They say that the Nihangs are not a part of the SKM or the farm unions. On October 17, three more accused surrender and are sent to six day remand custody. October 18, pictures of the head of the accused Nihang sect, Aman Singh, with Agriculture Minister N S Tomar and other BJP leaders from a recent meeting go viral. The sect head admits in the interviews that the meeting took place to discuss a different case of sacrilege of the holy book in the past and the ministers wanted us to help them in resolving the farmers’ protests.
