A man was beaten to death by a mob after an alleged sacrilege attempt at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the police said on Saturday.
According to reports, the man had jumped over the railing inside the Golden Temple during the daily evening prayer and tried to touch the sword kept in front of the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs. He was stopped and killed by those present.
"This evening during prayers, a man jumped the fence and entered the enclosed area. The congregation was offering prayers and bowing down," Parminder Singh Bhandal, the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Amritsar, said.
"The man, about 20 to 25 years of age who had a yellow cloth tied on his head jumped the fence... the people inside held him and escorted him out to the corridor where there was a violent altercation and he died," he said.
"He was alone. All details will be revealed as there are a lot of CCTV cameras in the area and our teams are alert, sifting through footage. Postmortem will be done tomorrow. We will verify where he was from," Mr Bhandal added.
