Bathinda police arrest two ‘nihangs’ for social media influencer’s murder
Police say search on for third accused, a self-styled Sikh radical leader, and term crime outcome of unauthorised moral policing.
Two nihangs were arrested on Friday for the murder of social media influencer Kanchan Kumari, 30, popularly known as Kamal Kaur Bhabhi, who was found dead under mysterious circumstances in her car parked outside Adesh University at Bhucho Kalan along the Bathinda-Chandigarh highway on Wednesday.
Bathinda senior superintendent of police Amneet Kondal said Jaspreet Singh and Nimratjit Singh were arrested for the murder, while a search was on for the third accused, Amritpal Singh Mehron, a self-styled Sikh radical leader, who is absconding.
“Kanchan was strangulated to death,” the SSP said, terming the crime an outcome of “unauthorised moral policing”. During preliminary probe, the arrested accused said they killed Kanchan for uploading immoral content “that hurt the community’s sentiments”.
Mehron had approached Kanchan last week on the pretext of a business meeting, inviting her to Bathinda to attend a paid promotion event, the SSP said.
She left her house in Ludhiana at 3.30pm on June 9 with Jaspreet and Nimratjit and a few hours later she was strangulated with a waistband in her car. The accused were not in nihang attire when they committed the crime, the police said.
Kanchan, who had 2.36 lakh followers on YouTube, 3.84 lakh on Instagram and 1.74 lakh on Facebook, had received threats for posting explicit content on social media. In October last year, terrorist Arsh Dalla had also reportedly threatened her with dire consequences if she did not stop posting inappropriate videos.
The arrests were made after a radical Sikh group claimed responsibility for the murder on social media hours after Kanchan’s decomposed body was recovered from the car.
A video has surfaced on social media in which Mehron is seen justifying the crime, saying Kanchan was killed by two of his accomplices. He said she belonged to a non-Sikh family but used a Sikh name for creating “immoral digital content”. He went on to add that his accomplices would target people engaged in objectionable content creation.
Police got a lead in the case when a CCTV video surfaced where an unidentified person wearing a turban was spotted driving into Adesh hospital parking lot at 5.30am on June 10.
A resident of Lachman Colony in Ludhiana, Kanchan had left home, saying she was going to Bathinda for a promotional event but subsequently lost contact with her family. Local residents in the Bhucho suburb informed police about stench emanating from the car on June 11.
Police rushed to the spot and found the woman dead on the rear seat of the car and she was later identified as Kanchan.
A murder case was registered on the complaint of her mother, Girja Devi, at Bathinda’s cantonment police station.
Kanchan’s last rites were performed in Bathinda on Thursday evening.
