A Hindutva right-wing leader has been shot dead in a broad daylight attack that was caught on camera in the northwestern Indian state of Punjab.
Sudhir Suri, the Shiv Sena leader, whose core ideology of Hindu nationalism, came under the attack despite being flanked by several policemen on a busy street in Amritsar on Friday afternoon.
The president of a faction of the Hindutva group, Suri had five hate speech cases against him.
The accused has been arrested and the weapon used in the crime seized, police said.
The incident took place outside Gopal Mandir on Majitha Road — one of the busiest places in the city — where Suri and some other leaders of the party were holding a protest, they said.
The assailant fired more than five shots at Suri, who was immediately taken to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, they said.
Sources said the attacker had come to the place with three others in an SUV but they escaped.
Earlier in the day, Suri had got into an argument with some men from the management of Gopal Mandir near Majitha Road — one of the busiest places in the city — over alleged sacrilege of idols.
He was live on Facebook barely an hour before the attack, showing some older idols "shamelessly dumped in garbage".
"We will not tolerate such sacrilege, even if by fellow Hindus," he said in that video.
When he was shot, he was on a dharna (a sit-in programme over a demand) on the street, sitting next to an associate who was seen firing back at the attacker from a revolver.
The killing comes just months after the murder, in May, of another prominent person with police security — singer Sidhu Moosewala — raising questions on Bhagwant Mann's Aam Aadmi Party government that was formed in March.
Suri was on the hit list of several gangsters for a long time and getting security with around eight Punjab Police personnel being attached with him, according to police.
Reacting to the incident, Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma said the law and order situation has completely broken down in the state.
State Congress chief Amarinder Singh 'Raja' Warring tweeted: "Law and order is deteriorating and going from bad to worse. Congress condemns murderous attack on Shiv Sena leader in Amritsar. Political differences apart, violence is unacceptable. Culprits must be brought to book."
Sudhi Suri's murder also brings back memories of a series of killings of right-wing or religious leaders, most of them from Hinduva outfits, in 2016 and 2017, when the Akali Dal-BJP and the Congress were in power at different times.
In Punjab, a number of Hindutva outfits use the name 'Shiv Sena', but don't formally have anything to do with the Maharashtra-based party founded by Bal Thackeray.
