A ghastly incident of a temple priest having been burnt alive by a group of people over a land dispute in Rajasthan’s Karauli district, around 180 km from Jaipur, came to the fore on Friday.
The accused allegedly threw petrol on the priest named Babulal Vaishnav and set him on fire on Wednesday as he had been trying to prevent them from encroaching temple land.
According to the Karauli SP, Mridul Kachhawa, the main accused, identified as Kailash Meena, has been arrested, while search is on for other accused — Shankar, Namo, Ram Lakhan and Kishan.
The injured 55-year-old priest was taken to the district hospital from where doctors sent him to SMS Hospital in a critical condition. He succumbed to his injuries late on Thursday. The main accused has been arrested while search is on for four others. The video of the incident has gone viral on social media.
The incident took place at Bukna village in Karauli district where Vaishnav was the priest of Radha Gopal temple.
The priest had about 15 bighas of land which belonged to the Radha Krishna temple trust. The said land was given to the head priest to till as a source of income. The said land was registered in the revenue record as “Mandir Mafi land”, which is a land given to a priest who is the caretaker of the village temple to use it as a source of income.
But this land became the source of a dispute. The priest had the land levelled as he wanted to build a plot for himself close to the land. This was objected by the accused group. The matter was taken to the village panchayat which ruled in favour of the priest last week. The priest then placed bales of his newly harvested millet on the land as a sign of ownership. However, despite the ruling, the accused also started construction on the plot.
Vaishnav complained to the police that Kailash Meena and his family were trying to grab the 15 bigha land belonging to the Radha Gopal temple in Bukna village. “On Wednesday morning, he had an argument with Meena and his associates - Shankar, Namo, Ram Lakhan and Kishan - over some construction that the latter was carrying out near a hill. When he protested, the accused along with his accomplices set fire to his bales of bajra (millet), poured kerosene on him and set him on fire,” Vaishnav told the police before succumbing to his injuries.
The SP said a case of attempt to murder was registered at Sapotra police station and it had been converted into a murder case after the death of the priest.
Following the priest’s death, protests broke out across the State and people of the Brahmin community protested at SMS Hospital where the victim took his last breath.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot termed the incident extremely unfortunate and condemnable and said the guilty would not be spared. “The Rajasthan Government is with the grieving family. The main accused in the incident has been arrested and action is being taken. The guilty will not be spared,” he tweeted in Hindi. Such acts have no place in a civilised society, he added.
Condemning the incident, former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said in a statement that the way the crime graph is rising in the State, it is clear that no woman, child, elderly person or Dalit is safe in the State. “The Congress Government of the State should now wake up from slumber and should get the family justice by getting strict punishment for the culprits,” she said.