Kapurthala man who was lynched had 30 injuries: Autopsy

A medical board of five doctors in its postmortem examination of an unidentified man who was lynched at a gurdwara over an alleged sacrilege attempt found nearly 30 injuries to the body, the officiating senior medical officer at the Kapurthala civil hospital said on Thursday.

Narinder Singh, the officer, addressed the media and said the injuries on the body established that the man was attacked with sharp weapons. He said the more severe injuries were on the neck, right hip and head apart from multiple stab wounds on various body parts, adding that viscera samples were collected for further examination to check if the man had consumed intoxicants while teeth, hair and blood samples were taken for a DNA test.

“There were up to 30 total injuries on the body of the deceased; most of them were deep cuts,” Singh said. He said the exact cause of death will be clear from the final report.

Police have neither registered a fresh FIR under murder charges nor added Section 302 of the IPC in the existing FIR registered against the deceased under Section 295-A (hurting religious sentiments), though officials had said earlier that they would probe the murder as part of the same FIR. Police officials privy to the development seeking anonymity said they have been investigating the matter from all angles and murder charges will be added soon.

After the postmortem examination, the deceased was cremated and remained unidentified as no one arrived to claim the body, though it had been preserved by police for over 72 hours. Authorities failed to establish the identity of the youth, as was the case with the man beaten to death in the Golden Temple sacrilege incident.

The man who appeared to be in his early of 20s, was beaten to death for allegedly desecrating a religious flag at a gurdwara in Punjab’s Kapurthala district on Sunday. Police, however, said there was “no visible sign” of sacrilege and it appeared as though the man had the intention of committing theft at the gurdwara.

The case was registered on the statement of Amarjit Singh, caretaker of the gurdwara, against the youth under charges of hurting religious sentiments. In a video shared on social media, Amarjit Singh said that the youth had not committed any act of sacrilege with the Guru Granth Sahib and even had food at the gurdwara, claiming that the man was sent by someone from Delhi and paid money to commit sacrilege.