Row erupts after videos of pastor Bajinder assaulting woman, man surface
No complainant has approached us, and we are verifying the location of the incident from the videos: Jalandhar cops
A self-styled preacher and pastor Bajinder Singh landed in a fresh controversy after two separate videos of him assaulting a man and woman in his office went viral on social media platforms. Two videos, both over two minutes each, carried the CCTV footage from his office and were reportedly from February 14 last month.
HT couldn’t independently verify the veracity of the videos. In one of the videos, the controversial pastor, who runs the Church of Glory and Wisdom in Tajpur village of Jalandhar district and other parts of the state, is seen throwing a bunch of papers at the woman before charging towards her and allegedly slapping her twice on the face.
In another video, Bajinder allegedly overpowered a man (likely to be an employee) and slapped him multiple times.
No FIR has been filed in this case yet. Senior police officials in Jalandhar said they have not received any complaints regarding the videos.
“We are cross-checking the videos and trying to establish the location of the incident, and if needed, a case will be registered,” officials said.
Despite repeated attempts Bajinder and Avtar Singh, head of Church of Glory and Wisdom at Tajpur, couldn’t be contacted for comments.
Controversial past
Bajinder is facing two sexual harassment cases. On February 28 last month, he was booked on the charges of sexual assault and stalking in Kapurthala, based on a complaint by a 22-year-old woman. Kapurthala police registered an FIR under Sections 354-A (sexual harassment), 354-D (stalking) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Kapurthala city police station. He is yet to be arrested in this case.
The Kapurthala police constituted a three-member special investigation team (SIT) under the supervision of Phagwara SP Rupinder Kaur Bhatti with DSP-Kapurthala and SHO-Kapurthala city police station as its members.
SP Bhatti said they have conducted the forensic examination of the victim’s mobile phone and the detailed report was received last week.
“based on the findings of the report, the next course of action will be taken. The videos that surfaced on Sunday have no connection with this FIR as of now,” Bhatti added.
The second case dates back to 2018 when a Zirakpur woman accused him of sexual harassment and rape. He was arrested at the Delhi airport in 201 and is currently out on bail. He recently appeared in Mohali court after non-bailable warrants (NBWs) were issued on March 3 against him.
The pastor’s aides — Jatinder, Akbar Ali, Sitar Ali, Sucha Singh, Rajesh Chaudhary and Sandeep Pehlwan — have also been named in the FIR registered under IPC Sections 376 (rape), 420 (cheating), 354 (outraging modesty of woman), 294 (obscenity), 323 (causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) and Section 67 (transmitting sexually explicit content) of the Information Technology (IT) Act at Zirakpur police station.
