Longowal joins Patiala stir, asks cops to recover missing ‘saroop’

DELEGATION LED BY SGPC CHIEF SUBMIT MEMORANDUM TO THE SSP DEMANDING RECOVERY OF SAROOP

PATIALA: A day after Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal launched a week-long protest against a saroop of the Guru Granth Sahib being stolen from Ardaspura Sahib gurdwara near Moti Mohal residence of the chief minister, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Gobind Singh Longowal joined the protesters on Saturday.

‘Warning’ the district police to recover the ‘saroop’ immediately and arrest those responsible for this heinous crime, Longowal said if this was not done, the SGPC would be forced to agitate to ensure justice in the case.

MUM ON 267 MISSING SAROOPS

His words, however, were caught on to by the media present. When questioned that the SGPC had not allowed the police to probe the case of missing 267 saroops that have been in the new for around two months, Longowal was evasive.

“I was not at the helm of affair then,” he told the media, when asked the reason for no protests when the saroops went missing in 2016.

“The Amritsar probe is different from Patiala. In Amritsar, it is a mismatch for which an inquiry committee has been formed by the Akal Takht, while at Patiala the saroop is stolen, which is an act for the police to probe,” Longowal added. He, however, did not answer that why it took four years to form a committee to look into the 267 saroops that went missing in 2016 and that why was the matter was not disclosed before the sangat.

Addressing a protest ‘dharna’ near the SSP office, the SPGC president added that was shocking that it was 17 days since the historic ‘swaroop’ was stolen from the gurdwara, but the CM and his wife MP Preneet Kaur had not spoken a single word condemning this act.

Later, a Longowal-led delegation which included senior SGPC members Rajinder Singh Mehta, Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa, Harinder Singh Dhami and Kuldeep Kaur Tohra went to the SSP office and submitted a memorandum, demanding the recovery of the ‘saroop’ and the arrest of the culprits.

Longowal later added that the SGPC was forced to protest because the district police had not taken the heinous crime casually and did not make the required effort to nab the perpetrators.