Former City Council candidate arrested on suspicion of hiring hit men amid legal dispute over control of Sikh temple

Mar. 7—A former Bakersfield City Council candidate was arrested last weekend on suspicion of trying to hire hit men to shoot members of one of Bakersfield's largest Sikh temples and burn down the property, escalating a years-old conflict that has divided the congregation's leadership and sparked dueling lawsuits in Kern County Superior Court.

Rajvir "Raj" Singh Gill, 60, who won less than 7 percent of the vote in November's Ward 7 election, was under a temporary restraining order not to harass the temple when Bakersfield police say he was taken into custody Saturday after being accused of six counts of solicitation to commit a criminal act. Records show he has since been released from jail.

A temple elder said Tuesday Gill has in recent months showed up at the property disrupting prayers and threatening members of the congregation and carrying a gun before being arrested at one point. There are no records of his arrest prior to Saturday.

The elder, Sukhwinder Singh Ranghi, attributed the repeated confrontations to a dispute over more than $800,000, contributed by members of the congregation, that was supposed to reimburse a corporate entity set up to buy the temple out of foreclosure in July 2020.

"It's the greed that most likely got to him," Ranghi said through a translator.

Gill could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and his lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

City Councilwoman Manpreet Kaur, who won last fall's election and sometimes prays at the temple just south of Panama Lane, Shaheed Baba Deep Singh Ji Khalsa Darbar, said she knew of the restraining order against Gill but was unaware of the conflict's details. She called the allegations against him unfathomable.

"It's really heartbreaking. It is," she said. "It's frightening and I'm just hoping the community stays safe."

A Bakersfield Police Department spokesman declined Tuesday to address what may have prompted Gill take the actions he is accused of, and he would not elaborate on the case.

Ranghi said the temple learned Gill offered $10,000 to two Hispanic men to kill certain leaders of the congregation who are involved in the court cases, including Ranghi. He said Gill drove the men around the city pointing out the homes of the temple leaders he wanted killed. This information came to temple leadership from an associate of the intended hit men.

Gill instructed the men on how they could burn down the temple by exploiting faulty electrical wiring, installed by his own workers when the temple was built more than a decade ago, Ranghi alleged.

Ranghi showed part of a video he said captured Gill unplugging microphones still in use during a religious service at the temple.

With more than 500 members, Shaheed is one of Bakersfield's best-attended Sikh temples. It hosts an annual celebration in late October that draws thousands, including as recently as last fall Rep. David Valadao, Mayor Karen Goh, Assemblyman Vince Fong and Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner.

Court records say that when Shaheed was in danger of losing control of its property because of foreclosure proceedings, a plan was devised by the temple's leadership in 2019 to have board members form a limited liability corporation that would buy the property at public auction and then return ownership to the temple's nonprofit organization.

Transfer of title back to the temple never took place, however, and accounts differ as to why.

A lawsuit filed in October 2021 by the temple's nonprofit organization against Jujhar LLC, formed specifically to buy the property, said four of the eight people selected to carry out the transaction worked together to "hijack the (LLC's) formation process." The suit alleged those four, named as defendants in the case, concealed the limited composition of the board according to a pre-formed plan to "hold the property hostage."

But in a separate complaint filed in January 2022, Jujhar sued nine members of the congregation it alleged were falsely holding themselves up to be acting board members of the temple.

That suit alleged the defendants took $430,000 that was supposed to be paid to Jujhar, in violation of an agreement with the LLC, and spent the money on personal and other improper expenses. It said the nine refused to put the money into escrow as agreed, costing Jujhar more than $25,000.

The cases have been consolidated and remain pending before the court.

On Nov. 21, Shaheed won a restraining order against Gill in Kern County Superior Court that barred him from harassing or disturbing the peace of the temple or otherwise interfering with its daily operations. Court Commissioner Gina Cervantes took action Feb. 14 to leave the order in place through a hearing set for April 15.

The Californian's Ishani Desai contributed to this report.