Punjab: Christian woman murdered for desecration' of Guru Granth Sahib

Amritsar: A 55-year-old Christian woman was on Sunday night hacked to death by some unidentified men outside her house in Veroke village, Punjab, over the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib.

The deceased has been identified as Balwinder Kaur, who was mentally retarded at the time of the murder. She had, in 2015, suffered an accidental electrical shock that resulted in her sickness.

According to reports, some men knocked on the door of the woman's house around 12:30 am, dragged her out of the house and repeatedly attacked her with a sickle. They inflicted severe injuries on her body and left her bleeding near her house, said Harkamal Preet Singh Khakh, the senior superintendent of police, Amritsar, rural.

Kaur died four hours after the attack due to excessive bleeding.

The Punjab police said the woman was attacked only below her knee. "The assailants could have stabbed or shot her dead but they inflicted injuries upon her below knee only which has made us to think of several theories," he said. They also suspect the hand of Sikh radical extremists behind her murder.

Last year, Kaur was booked under sections 295A, 505 and 511 of the Indian Penal Code for entering a gurudwara in slippers.