In the Indian state of Punjab, a group of self-proclaimed defenders of the Sikh faith murdered social media content creator Kanchan Kumari (also known as Kamal Kaur) for posting videos they deemed vulgar and immoral. Kumari was reportedly strangled and left in a locked car.

One of the accused, Amritpal Singh Mehron, released a video in which he proudly took responsibility for the killing, describing it as an act of “moral purification” of Punjab. In the same video, he issued threats against others, including Deepika Luthra, who has since come forward expressing fear for her life.

Prior to her death, Kumari had also received threats from a Canada-based Sikh gangster. In the aftermath, a Sikh woman lawyer publicly condemned Kumari, invoking the phrase Jaisi karni, vaisi bharni (“you get what you deserve”). In her videos, Kumari often spoke about sex and sexual acts.

Mehron has since fled overseas and has been lionised on several Punjabi social media platforms. A YouTube channel conducted a sympathetic interview with him. Comments under the video are overwhelmingly supportive, with many praising the act and some offering prayers for the protection of Mehron and his accomplices.

Many of the young women posting risqué content online come from marginalised socio-economic backgrounds and rely on this work for survival, with few alternative sources of income to support themselves and their families.

While some of their content may veer into explicit territory – a grey area that social media platforms readily exploit – the regulation of such material is the responsibility of the state, not of vigilantes and criminals claiming to uphold religious or moral values.

Mehron’s hateful video, and the widespread support it has received, reveal a chilling rationalisation of murder. He and his supporters portray Kumari as an outsider – a non-Punjabi and a non-Sikh – accused of corrupting the cultural and religious purity of Punjab.

Before assessing this bigoted rhetoric, it's important to place this tragedy within the broader context – examining how Sikh identity, extremism, and cultural policing are represented, and what is omitted from dominant narratives.

The Western gaze and selective narratives

In Western media and academic discourse, religious extremism in India is almost exclusively viewed through the lens of Hindutva – the majoritarian Hindu nationalist movement. Within this framework, all religious minorities – Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs – are cast primarily as victims of Hindu dominance.

This narrative is further reinforced by segments of the Sikh diaspora in countries such as Canada, the UK and the US. Respected Sikh professionals and activists publish articles in major outlets like Time Magazine, with headlines such as “Why India Is Targeting Sikhs at Home and Around the World,” appealing to Western liberal ideals of minority rights and protection of the persecuted.

Yet these voices remain conspicuously silent about violence perpetrated by Sikh extremists – both historical and ongoing – against dissenters and excluded communities.

From the assassination of liberal Sikh journalist Tara Singh Hayer in 1998 in Canada (for opposing Khalistani terrorism), to murderous violence against Dalit Sikhs in Vienna in 2009 for challenging dominant-caste Sikh orthodoxy, a pattern emerges: internal critique of essentialist Sikh identity is ignored or suppressed brutally.

Personal experience

As I have written elsewhere, I grew up in Punjab during the turbulent 1980s and 90s. As per reports, at the height of militancy, state agents committed atrocities, but continued Sikh militant violence has also been devastating.

I noticed and experienced the corrosive influence of Sikh orthodoxy on general freedom of thought and expression in Punjab.

My issue is not with Sikhism itself – indeed, half my family comes from a Sikh background, and some of my dearest friends have been Sikhs. I hold deep respect for Guru Nanak’s humane philosophy and historical Sikhism’s inclusive ethos and egalitarianism. Instead, my concern lies with the rise of self-important Sikh orthodoxy (as analysed by Harjot Oberoi) and politicised Sikhism of the dominant-caste groups that glorify violence to project their power.

Historical amnesia

The dream of a Khalistani state is a dominant-caste fantasy of restoring a “pure” Sikh kingdom. Yet, as the late Khushwant Singh – an atheist but culturally Sikh scholar and writer – reminds us, the Sikh aristocracy of the past was far from devout. The chiefs of Sikh misls (or militias) were more feudal than spiritual; they could be corrupt, their personal habits indulgent; one group, “the Bhangis” were named after their “founder’s addiction to bhang (hashish)…” he writes in his monumental The Sikhs.

Singh writes: “As soon as the Sikhs settled down as landowners, property rights became hereditary and the disparity in wealth introduced an extraneous element in the choice of leadership.”

When the Sikh confederacies eventually unified under Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the early 19th century, his army and cabinet included large numbers of Muslims and Hindus.

Punjab was – and remains – ethnically and religiously diverse. Ironically, modern Sikh attempts to purify Punjab on linguistic and religious lines have reduced it to a small state, with other regions going to the newly organised states like Haryana.

The theocratic and political construction of Sikh history along with the rigid definition of Punjab’s identity in narrowly Sikh and Punjabi-speaking terms, excludes and silences the region’s most vulnerable communities. To cite one example, as suppressed Punjabi Dalits turn to Christianity for dignity, Sikh religious bodies express alarm. In this climate of hostility and control, a Christian pastor can be brazenly shot dead in public.

Modern Sikh extremism and its soft targets

 An early instance of Sikh moral policing was the 1988 assassination of Amar Singh Chamkila, a wildly popular Dalit singer and musician, targeted for performing songs deemed vulgar. His murder set a precedent.

In the years that followed, those punished for transgressing Sikh religious norms or Punjabi cultural values were almost always from marginalised socio-economic backgrounds. The 2024 biopic on Chamkila depicts how he was repeatedly hauled before Sikh religious courts to apologise. In one poignant scene, Chamkila quietly questions why he alone is being “disciplined,” while other – usually upper-caste – musicians perform similar songs without repercussions.

In contemporary Punjab and the Sikh diaspora in the West, Khalistani sympathisers often ignore pressing local issues – such as the systemic oppression of Dalits (who make up 32% of Punjab's population and are mostly landless), the struggles of women and the LGBTQ groups in a hyper-masculine culture, as well as the exploitation of migrant labourers from poor Hindi-speaking states.

Meanwhile, Punjab has witnessed multiple incidents of lynching for alleged acts of blasphemy against the Sikh religion. The victims are almost always from poor, marginal backgrounds and receive little attention from mainstream media. One such killing drew widespread notice because it occurred at the holiest Sikh site, the Golden Temple. In another, a Dalit labourer was brutally hacked to death with swords over similar accusations.

Migrant workers have been particularly vulnerable. These workers had arrived in Punjab during the agricultural boom of the 1970s and 1980s, many settling permanently and raising families. During the peak of Sikh militancy in the 1980s, these poor labourers – often Hindu, non-Punjabi, and from marginalised castes – could be killed to assert Sikh dominance. For example, in May 1990, over a dozen migrants were shot dead.

A convenient morality

What stands out in the current wave of moral policing is its selective nature. Young women like Kumari and Luthra – poor, vulnerable, Hindu, and lacking influential connections – are publicly threatened or even killed. In contrast, no such outrage is directed at wealthy or well-connected Punjabi celebrities who produce music and videos that glorify violence, upper-caste supremacy, sexism, or are overtly sexual.

A few social media users have questioned why the self-appointed moral guardians remain silent about figures like Sunny Leone (born Karenjit Kaur Vohra), a Bollywood celebrity and former porn star of Sikh background.

Leone’s entry into Bollywood around 2012 arguably accelerated the mainstreaming and commercialisation of sexually explicit content in the entertainment industry, and influenced aspiring Indian female performers on social media platforms. Yet she remains largely shielded from belligerent critics because of wealth, influential connections, and a privileged caste status.

In stark contrast, Mehron’s video repeatedly dehumanises the murdered Kanchan Kumari, mocking her outsider and marginal status, using ethnic slurs like “Bhaiya Rani [Bhaiya Princess] of UP and Bihar”. Bhayia is a derogatory term in Punjab commonly used to belittle Hindi-speaking migrant labourers, many of whom belong to marginalised Hindu castes or are socially disadvantaged.

Kumari’s surname was Tiwari, an upper class surname, and she “grew up in Ludhiana’s Lakshman Nagar, a congested neighbourhood of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar."

By targeting convenient scapegoats, these moral policemen and their supporters are not defending the Sikh faith. Rather, they are exploiting religious sentiment for personal notoriety, commercial gain, political clout, and online attention. Mehron himself was a minor internet celebrity.

This selective vigilantism seeks to consolidate power by controlling the bodies, voices, and identities of those least able to resist – individuals whose murder is unlikely to spark widespread outrage, attract global media scrutiny, or result in serious consequences for the perpetrators.

Rajiv Thind holds a PhD in English from the University of Queensland. He is a writer, literary critic, and currently a visiting academic at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

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