YouTuber Kamal Kaur's murder, morality and silence: Is Punjab drifting backwards?

India Today

4 days ago

Amritsar-based social media influencer Deepika Luthra recently deleted her Instagram account after receiving life threats from radical elements, who had been objecting to her content. This was despite the police providing her security.Just days ago, on June 11, Kamal Kaur, a Punjabi YouTuber known to her fans as 'Kamal Bhabhi', was found murdered—strangled and dumped in a canal near Bathinda in Punjab. The killing, carried out allegedly by a Nihang Sikh named Amritpal Singh Mehron and his accomplices, sent shockwaves across the state's online community over a broad pattern of intimidation of social media personalities in Punjab.advertisementWhat followed Kamal Kaur's murder was even more chilling. Giani Malkeet Singh, the head granthi of the Akal Takht—the highest temporal seat of Sikhism—came out to purportedly justify the crime. 'As per Sikh religious teachings,' he said, 'nobody, including Hindus and Muslims, should listen to obscene songs, especially the young Sikh generation.' He blamed Kamal Kaur for corrupting minds, as if hinting that her killing was, in a sense, an act of religious reprimanding.Now, the state police are cracking down on some 100 social media accounts that justified such endorsements even as minister Aman Arora, who is also the Punjab chief of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has urged citizens not to panic.
This is not the first time an act of extrajudicial violence in Punjab has found implicit—or even explicit—support from the Sikh clergy. In 2021, a Dalit man was lynched at the Golden Temple premises after being accused of sacrilege. His murder was caught on camera, yet no one from the Sikh institutions or political leadership condemned it outright.advertisementIn 2023, Sudhir Suri, a Hindu outfit leader, was gunned down in Amritsar. The alleged assailant, Sandeep Singh, was valorised on social media by fringe elements as a defender of the faith. He was showered with flower petals by Sikh groups. Again, silence—or at best mealy-mouthed justification—followed from the religious quarters.Earlier this year, the Amritsar Pride Parade, scheduled for April 27, was cancelled due to strong opposition from Sikh organisations and concerns about religious sanctity. Paramajit Singh Akali, a Nihang Sikh, led the objection, and the clergy supported the protests. The parade has been organised since 2019 as a connecting platform for the LGBTQIA+ community in the city.In the Kamal Kaur case, there's now evidence that the accused, Mehron, had fled to Dubai. Some of his accomplices have been arrested and sent to judicial custody. But what about the broader message? When a religious authority cloaks a murder with moral legitimacy, it is not just justice that is delayed but society that is endangered.This spiral of intimidation and vigilante justice is not confined to one incident. Last year, a Nihang Sikh publicly harassed and threatened the popular social media couple behind the 'Kulhad Pizza' brand. In October 2024, Nihang Sikhs, led by Baba Maan Singh, had threatened these Jalandhar-based social media influencers, Sehaj Arora and Gurpreet Kaur, accusing them of posting 'lecherous' videos that offended religious sentiments.advertisementThe Nihangs reportedly demanded that Sehaj either remove his turban or take down the content. The coupled had approached the Akal Takht. Despite sustained intimidation and growing unrest in the community, the Punjab police remained passive. It was only after the couple moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court that they were granted legal protection.Until then, the law enforcement agencies chose silence over action. The harassment escalated to such a level that they were forced to leave Punjab and seek safety elsewhere. The police response was tepid, at best. An FIR was filed, but the narrative—that religious orthodoxy allows for moral policing—remained unchallenged.Moderate and liberal voices in Punjab have started raising red flags. 'Are we now deciding morality with swords?' asks one activist. 'Where is the line between personal freedom and public violence?'Some critics highlight the dangerous absence of institutional guardrails. Thespian Pali Bhupinder Singh argues: 'Kanchan Kumari made low-quality videos, but there was clearly an audience for them. And while her murder can never be justified, the debate that followed has not been a debate at all—it has become a contest of entrenched opinions, motivated by hate, outrage or ideological agendas.'advertisementThe silence of the Sikh institutions is not seen as accidental. These recurring episodes recall Punjab's darkest era of the 1980s, when militancy rose not just from separatist demands but a deeply intolerant climate that branded poets, artists and reformers as enemies of the faith.Poet Avtar Singh Pash, known for his radical humanism, was gunned down in 1988. Actor Varinder Deol and singer Amar Singh Chamkila, whose lyrics celebrated life in all its rough-edged reality, were murdered by extremists. Their crime? Dissent. Expression. Popularity.Even the then Akal Takht jathedar, Bhai Ranjit Singh, was convicted in the assassination of Baba Gurbachan Singh, head of the Nirankari sect, in 1980. That killing catalysed a wave of sectarian violence in Punjab. Yet Ranjit Singh is not perceived as a villain in the society.Four decades on, Punjab's wounds have not healed; they've only been papered over. And now, dangerously, the old script is reappearing. Several people in the Sikh clergy are actively pushing the community toward radical agendas, squeezing the space for moderate Sikhs and liberal voices. The glorification of Khalistan militants, the erasure or underplaying of the role of those who opposed them, and the selective invocation of Sikh pride all point to a deeper malaise.advertisementNone of this is happening in vacuum. It is enabled, even accelerated, by the dwindling credibility of Sikh institutions—both religious and political—that once held moral authority, but now appear either complicit or compromised.What makes the situation more alarming is the failure of institutions—religious, political and administrative—to draw the line. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), politicians and Sikh religious leaders have all failed to issue a full-throated condemnation of such acts. Even in cases like Kamal Kaur's murder, where the perpetrator is named and the act itself horrific, the narrative is being twisted into one of moral justification.It is a slippery slope. What begins as cultural regulation quickly morphs into legitimised violence. The state's complicity—through inaction—only emboldens the self-appointed guardians of morality.Punjab, a land of poets and reformers, deserves better. The promise of freedom, of faith without fear, cannot be sacrificed at the altar of orthodoxy. When the clergy justifies killing and institutions look the other way, it is not just the victim who suffers but the soul of Punjab itself.advertisementSubscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsMust Watch