Attack On Priests In Haryana Temple: Two Killed, Tongue Of At Least One Cut

In a brutal attack on five priests in a temple in Haryana, unidentified assailants killed two and injured three others, The Tribune has reported.

In the attack, which reportedly took place on the intervening night of 18 and 19 August, the assailants cut the tongue of one of the five priests and tied up their hands and legs. However, according to a report in Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, tongues of all the five priests were cut.

Those killed in the attack have been identified as Vinod Sharma, a priest and a resident of Kaithal district, and Sultan, a sewadar from Uttar Pradesh.

The other three, who had come to the temple in the evening for a puja to be performed by the main priest on Sunday, were rushed to a hospital when devotees discovered them in the morning, reports have said.

Locals have been protesting since the case came to light, demanding swift action. The police have registered a case.

“Four teams have been constituted to crack the case. On the statement of one of the injured we have registered a case under section 302 against seven persons including one by name that is Sunil Kumar, a resident of Manglora,” the Superintendents of Police was quoted by The Tribune as saying.

This case comes just days after a similar incident in Uttar Pradesh in which men associated with those suspected of cow slaughter killed two Hindu priests.

According to reports, the men had killed the priests as they were passing on information to the police “that resulted in the arrest of the accused's family members and relatives for suspected cow slaughter (sic)”.