Sangrur: Tension continued in Sangrur on Friday as the family of 23-year-old Dalit youth Sanamdeep Singh collected his ashes under heavy police deployment, a day after police took possession of his body, conducted a post-mortem and carried out the cremation amid protests. Police also released 12 detainees, including eight members of the victim’s family, even as no arrests have been made so far of the village sarpanch and three others named in the FIR for allegedly abetting Sanamdeep’s suicide.Sanamdeep, a resident of Kanoi village, died on Sept 26, a day after allegedly consuming poison. His family accused the village sarpanch and three others of harassment and had refused to allow a post-mortem until the accused were arrested.On Thursday, police forcibly took possession of the body, broke through a protest by family members and supporters, conducted the autopsy and cremated the body while detaining relatives and opposition leaders. The action drew sharp criticism from civil rights groups and opposition parties.The episode has sparked a political confrontation between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party government in chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s home district.Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa was denied permission on Friday to meet senior Congress leader Rajinder Singh Deepa at Central Jail, Patiala. Deepa was arrested during Thursday’s clash between police and protesters outside Sangrur civil hospital and was later shifted to Patiala jail.In a letter dated Oct 2, 2026, jail superintendent Gurcharan Singh Dhaliwal said visits were restricted to family members, relatives and legal counsel under the Punjab Prisons Rules, 2022. As Deepa had authorised only his wife and son-in-law as visitors, permission for Bajwa’s meeting request was declined, he said.After visiting the bereaved family, senior Congress leader and former cabinet minister Raj Kumar Verka accused the state government of being insensitive towards Dalits and demanded that provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act be added to the FIR.“If justice is denied to the Dalit community, followers of Baba Saheb Ambedkar across the country will make life difficult for the chief minister. The pot of sins is full,” Verka said.Defending its decision to cremate the body, police said on Thursday that the Senior Medical Officer had issued multiple notices warning that the corpse was rapidly decomposing and that, under Section 301 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), causing indignity to a dead body is an offence. Police claimed repeated notices were served on the family, but they refused to accept them due to political influence.Police said an FIR had already been registered on Sept 28 at Sadar Sangrur police station under Section 108 (abetment of suicide) and Section 3(5) of the BNS against the village sarpanch, his brother, a former panchayat member and a woman on the complaint of Sanamdeep’s father. However, police alleged that Congress leader Rajinder Deepa and other outsiders had prevented the family from agreeing to the post-mortem, insisting on arrests before the procedure could take place.According to the police, protesters turned violent when authorities proceeded with legal formalities, allegedly damaging property, using abusive language and attacking officials. Police said minimal force was used to disperse the crowd.Following the clash, City Sangrur police registered FIR No. 194 against Rajinder Deepa and three others under various sections of the BNS, including assault on a public servant, and secured 14 days’ judicial remand for the accused. Family members of the deceased who had been taken into preventive custody on Thursday were released on Friday.
