A 32-year-old ascetic allegedly brutally murdered a fellow sadhu in Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi district and remained near the victim’s body until villagers discovered the crime on Monday morning, police said.
A 32-year-old ascetic allegedly brutally murdered a fellow sadhu in Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi district and remained near the victim’s body until villagers discovered the crime on Monday morning, police said. The victim, identified as Bablu, a resident of Jiyankhera village, was sleeping in a verandah in the Sherbahadurpur area when the fatal attack took place at around 4 am.
According to police, the accused, Munni alias Munshilal, allegedly struck Bablu repeatedly on the head with the blunt end of an axe before crushing his face with a brick, leaving him dead at the spot.
The shocking crime came to light around 6 am when a local shopkeeper spotted the body and alerted the police. Officers rushed to the scene, sent the body for a postmortem examination and detained the accused for questioning.
Related Articles
Axe, Bloodstained Brick Recovered From Crime Scene
Police recovered several items from the spot, including an axe, a bloodstained brick, a pouch of country liquor, a crushed glass and a water-pot lid commonly used by ascetics. Other belongings found at the scene have also been seized for forensic examination as police work to piece together the sequence of events.
Victim Had Embraced Ascetic Life Four Years Ago
Police said Bablu had embraced ascetic life after receiving religious initiation at Budheshwar temple in Lucknow around four years ago. He had returned from Lucknow on Friday night.
Preliminary findings suggest that Munshilal reached the spot following an altercation with a woman priest at a temple in Pahi village.
Police suspect that an argument erupted between the two men early on Sunday and eventually escalated into deadly violence. Police are probing the circumstances surrounding the dispute to establish the motive behind the alleged murder.
