An incident of sacrilege was reported on late Monday evening in the Raja Garden locality near Basti Bawa Khel wherein torn pages of gutka sahib were found strewn in the lanes.
The police have registered a case against unknown persons under the provisions of Section 299 of the BNS and Section 5 of the Jagat Jot Shri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar Act 2008 (Amendment BIll 2006) at Basti Bawa Khel Police Station. A complaint had been lodged into the matter by Narinder Singh Lucky Khalsa of the Mission Shaheedan Tarna Dal Harian Velan, Jalandhar, Aam Aadmi Party leader Iqbal Singh Bagga and nihang Sikh Taranjit Singh.
The copy of the FIR has a note at the end saying that both BNS and the new anti-sacrilege Act had been imposed. The new Act had been imposed manually as the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems had not been updated to include it digitally. This is for the first time that the new Act has been imposed by the police in the district.
As soon as the news spread around 10 pm last evening, Bagga and various nihang jathas had reached the spot and took possession of the torn angs of the holy scripture. They informed the police. Jalandhar West ACP Aatish Bhatia and his team also reached the spot and started investigation. He listened to the complaints and checked CCTV footages of the incident from the locality to collect evidences.
Bagga said, “The incident took place in a vacant plot near Nanak Hatt along Baba Budha Ji bridge. There are several quarters of the migrant labourers in the locality and the sacrilege seems to be the handiwork of someone from the migrant community".
The torn angs were spotted from the site where residents had been dumping waste, which evoked unrest within the Sikh community. Various Sikh activists, including Sukhminder Pal Singh Rajpal and others, started gathering at the site. They demanded immediate identification of the accused and their arrest. They started a dharna near the bridge at 2 am which continued for over half an hour.
BOX: Sikh community against new Act
Sikh organisations and members of various local gurdwara management committees alleged that the desecration was carried out deliberately as part of a well-thought-out conspiracy so as to enforce the Act. Various Sikh activists on Tuesday submitted a memorandum regarding desecration to Manpreet Singh Dhillon, DCP, Investigation, and demanded that the new anti-sacrilege Act should not be imposed as it had not yet been approved by the Akal Takht. They said a meeting of more than 500 Sikh activists had been organised at Nauvi Patshahi gurdwara at Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar against the implementation of the Act and the recent Shukrana Yatra of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. They said the sacrilege incident had occurred just a day after the meeting deliberated to bring the new Act into practice.
They demanded that the accused of desecration be booked under the old law and a narco test should be conducted in the presence of Sikh organisations. A high-level committee should be formed to investigate and bring the truth before the congregation, said Sikh leaders Jagjit Singh Gaba, Iqbal Singh Dhindsa, Gurmeet Singh Bittu, Trilochan Kaur Pracharak, Davinder Singh Raheja, Charanjeev Singh Lali, Maninderpal Singh Gumbar and Prof Balwinder Pal Singh.
