Sardar Charan Jeet Singh, a renowned Sikh community leader and rights activist, was gunned down in the precinct of Inqilab Police Station, Peshawar on Tuesday.
According to police, the 52-year-old peace activist was killed inside his shop in Scheme Chowk area.
“The lone attacker managed to escape the scene after killing Charan Jeet Singh inside his shop. Investigations have been initiated after the case was logged at Inqilab Police Station,” Peshawar Cantonment superintendent of police said. It was not clear whether it was a target killing incident or a result of the personal enmity.
Sikh community leaders had been targeted in the past in Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, no target killing of Sikh community members was reported in the past four years.
The only killing of a prominent Sikh community leader was the murder of Sardar Suran Singh, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker and special adviser to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister, allegedly by another minority leader of the same political party.
Charan Jeet Singh had been residing in Peshawar for the past many decades but his family hailed from Kurram Agency.
The killing of the rights activist is a worrying sign for the peaceful Sikh community of Peshawar as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The last incident of targeted attack on Sikh community was reported in September 2014, when 28-year old Harjeet Singh was shot dead in Peshawar on September 6. Two days before that incident, 45-year Amarjeet Singh was stabbed to death in his cosmetics shop in Mardan.
Published in Daily Times, May 30th 2018.