AMRITSAR: Akal Takht acting jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh and Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi have crossed swords over the lynching of a sacrilege accused youth. While Singhvi expressed regret over people taking the law into their hands, the acting jathedar “justified the killing”.
Giani Harpreet asked the government to examine what provoked the sangat (gathering in the gurdwara) to kill. Reacting to a tweet from Singhvi, in which he called both sacrilege and the lynching as horrendous acts, the jathedar said instead of punishing the culprits in earlier cases, the government sheltered those who attacked the Sikh holy book, shrines and violated maryada besides hurting religious sentiments that pained Sikhs since 1947.
He asked Singhvi what option was left to the Sikhs “when the law had failed to deliver justice”. He reminded Singhvi of the “Sikhs on death row and of the 1984 pogrom”. He cautioned the sangat against mischievous elements who might try to disturb the state’s communal harmony during elections. He also asked the state and central governments to expose the mischievous elements and their backers, saying, “Punjab is a border state and any disturbance in its territory will impact the rest of India.” The acting jathedar has called a meeting of Sikh high priests on December 25 to review the sacrilege cases with Sikh scholars and intellectuals.
Reacting to the December 18 incident of sacrilege at the Golden Temple, Singhvi had tweeted: “Sacrilege is horrendous but lynching is no less horrendous. Take strict action against all those who took the law into their hands.”
