Two Nihang Sikhs have been arrested in Amritsar city in the Indian state of Punjab for killing a man near the Golden Temple, while the search for another person is ongoing, police said on Thursday.
The horrific murder was caught on camera and shows two Nihang Sikhs and another person indulging in a verbal spat with a man after they found him chewing tobacco on a street barely a kilometer away from the Sikh shrine and then attacking him.
The police found his body on Thursday morning.
"They had taken offense to his chewing tobacco and being drunk while roaming in that area," police told reporters. “It is shameful that while there were 6-7 people on the spot, none of them called us,” they added.
Similar incidents have previously been reported in the vicinity of the Golden Temple. When the city police chief was asked how law enforcement is putting a stop to such vigilantism, he said that whenever a complaint had been received, the police took swift action.
In March of this year, a woman was beaten at the Golden Temple for smoking on the premises.
Sikhs consider smoking or the use of tobacco as a taboo, as the tenth Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, prohibited them from doing so.