Days after the horrific lynching of two sadhus in Palghar, Maharashtra jolted the collective conscience of the entire nation, another shocker has come to light from Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh. The incident came to light after village locals discovered the blood-soaked bodies of two sadhus on Tuesday morning inside a temple in Pagona village of Bulandshahar, where the two priests identified as Jagdish, 55 and Sher Singh, 45, lived. Uttar Pradesh police has arrested a man in connection with the killing of the priests. According to the UP police, the accused Murari, alias Raju, was accused of theft by the priests just a few days ago. SSP Bulandshahar Santosh Kumar told the media that “The two priests who used to live on the temple premises had accused a local Murari, alias Raju, of stealing their chimta (tongs) a few days ago.” The accused was apparently intoxicated when the incident took place.
“The accused had consumed cannabis before entering the temple. After questioning, the accused revealed that he attacked the victims with lathis,” said Ravindra Kumar, District Magistrate, Bulandshahar. The DM added that villagers helped the police catch the accused, who ran away to the nearby fields after committing the crime. “The accused was still high on cannabis when he was arrested. On being confronted about the crime, he called it a will of God,” added the District Magistrate. Though the authorities have denied any communal angle to the incident, the murder of the two priests snowballed into a major political controversy, with many top leaders of the Opposition taking pot-shots at the Uttar Pradesh government over the same. While Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra demanded an inquiry into the “merciless killing of the two priests”, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, in a thinly veiled jibe at Yogi Adityanath, tweeted, “Have spoken to Yogi Adityanath over phone and discussed the incident. I told him we are with you against such a heinous crime.
Just the way we acted upon and nabbed the accused, I wish you would do the same and avoid giving this a communal angle”. Also, many Shiv Sena leaders, including Sanjay Raut tweeted, condemning the murders, asking people to refrain from giving these a communal colour. Yogi Adityanath had earlier demanded an inquiry into the Palghar incident after some called the killings communal in nature.