Body of a priest was found hanging from a temple in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli town on Wednesday, 2 January, Hindustan Times reported quoting police officials.
According to the report, the body of the priest, Baba Prem Das was found in Ram Janki Temple, and locals allege that this is not a case of suicide, but rather a murder by mafia who were trying to grab the land of temple trust for the last many years.
Speaking to Hindustan Times, locals claimed that Das had previously written to to the district magistrate citing threat to his life. Meanwhile, superintendent of police (SP), Sunil Kumar Singh confirmed to the newspaper that there 'indeed was a land dispute', however, it was yet to be ascertained whether the priest killed self or was murdered.
Another police official, Circle officer of Dalmau, Vineet Singh said that it took at least six hours to bring the body down due to heavy protests by the residents. Singh added that the security was beefed up to avoid any untoward incident.
A resident told HT, Panchsheel Mahavidyalaya, owned by the aides of a senior politician was located on the temple land and had been in a dispute with the temple trust over the land.
“Recently, the trust got a court order in its favour which directed the district administration to get the illegally occupied land vacated.”Resident to Hindustan Times
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)