SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal visits Golden Temple, calls sacrilege attempt in Amritsar 'traumatic incident'

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday visited the Golden Temple and condemned the alleged sacrilege attempt here calling it a "traumatic incident".

Addressing a press conference here, Badal said, "One sinful man tried to insult Sikhism's holy book, Guru Granth Sahib. However, he was caught and got punished for the sinful act."

Citing an example of another similar incident, he said, "A few days ago, another holy book Gutka Sahib was also torn by someone. We handed over the culprit to the police, but the Punjab police have not taken any action on it."

He further said, "Some people try to play politics on Sikhism. Other parties should not play politics on such incidents otherwise God will not spare them."

"We will ask the state government to take action and resolve this issue as soon as possible," Badal added.

Requesting Punjab Police and Delhi government to help in resolving the issue, he said, "You have so many investigation agencies. I request you to sort out this traumatic incident as soon as possible. If the culprit is not caught, these incidents will happen again and again."

"Punjab is a peaceful city. Resolve this issue. the Golden temple is a holy place. If someone tries to play politics over Sikhism, it will not be tolerated," the SAD chief added.

A man was beaten to death in an altercation by angry devotees after he allegedly attempted to commit sacrilege at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, earlier on December 18.

The incident took place during evening prayers when the man jumped over the metal railing around the Guru Granth Sahib and allegedly attempted to desecrate the Holy Book of the Sikhs with a sword.

Reacting to the incident, Badal in Punjab's Fazilka said, "We do not want to do politics. We want culprits to be caught. Since no culprit was caught in the last 5 years, they were emboldened. It's sad they have formed an inquiry committee of the Deputy Chief Minister. A judge should have been on the committee. This shows that they do not want to catch culprits."

Badal further slammed the Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and said, "I would like to tell Punjab Chief Minister and Dy CMs to remember the sacrilege incident in our government's rule. You had said that CM should be jailed, that CM-Dy CM had allowed it. You did politics and didn't catch the guilty and deliberately spent 5 yrs in defaming Badal family and SAD."

Meanwhile, an unidentified man was allegedly beaten to death by locals at Nizampur in Punjab's Kapurthala district on Sunday for allegedly disrespecting the 'Nishan Sahib' at the village Gurudwara.

A video of people beating up the man who allegedly attempted sacrilege with the Nishan Sahib has gone viral on the Internet. He was later handed over to the police but some people reportedly insisted that the man be questioned in front of them and the man was allegedly beaten to death in an ensuing scuffle.

(ANI)