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A 35-year-old sewadar at Delhi’s Kalkaji Mandir was beaten to death by a group of men after a quarrel over prasad late Friday escalated into violence, police said. Five men involved in the attack have been arrested.
Police said a PCR call was received around 9.30 pm about a quarrel inside the temple premises. When a police team reached the spot, it was found that a group of men had come to the temple for darshan and later demanded chunni prasad (a combination of a sacred headscarf and a religious offering of food) from the sewadar, Yogendra Singh.
An argument broke out, and the men allegedly assaulted Yogendra with sticks and rained blows, said police. Yogendra was rushed to the AIIMS Trauma Centre, where he succumbed.
A video of the incident shows a group of five to six men beating him with sticks as he lies motionless on the ground.
One of the accused, Atul Pandey (30), a resident of Dakshinpuri, was caught at the spot by members of the public and handed over to the police.
On Saturday evening, Mohan (19) and Kuldeep Bidhuri (20), both residents of Tughlakabad, were arrested. Later, police arrested another accused, Nitin Pandey (26), a resident of Govindpuri. His father, Anil Kumar (55), was also arrested on charges of harbouring the accused and aiding him to avoid detection.
During questioning, the men allegedly told police that they had held a grouse against Yogendra for manhandling them while managing the crowd at the temple.
Police said Mohan and Kuldeep were regular patrons of the temple and had run into Yogendra around a month ago. “They claimed Yogendra had pushed them and didn’t allow them to stay inside for long. On Friday, the men ran into Yogendra again at the temple. Yogendra told them that the temple had run out of prasad when they asked for some. Enraged by the slight, the men decided to wait until the temple closed and followed him to the temple’s dharamshala. As Yogendra rested, they entered the room and dragged him outside to beat him,” an officer said.
Yogendra is survived by his wife, six-year-old daughter, and eight-year-old son. From Hardoi, he had been volunteering at the Kalkaji temple for the past 14-15 years, police said.
The incident prompted the AAP to hit out at the BJP-Delhi government.
Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly and Kalkaji MLA, Atishi, Saturday wrote to Chief Minister Rekha Gupta over the incident and claimed the Capital has turned into the “capital of crime, extortion and gang wars” under the BJP-led government. In her letter, Atishi also alleged that Delhiites no longer feel safe in their homes, markets or even places of worship.
In a post on X, former Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal wrote: “Didn’t the hands of these miscreants tremble before they brutally murdered the sevadar inside the Kalkaji Temple? If this isn’t a failure of law and order, then what is it? The four engines of the BJP have brought Delhi to such a state that now such incidents are happening even in temples. Is anyone safe in Delhi or not?”
There was no immediate response from the BJP or the Delhi government to the AAP’s charge.
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