To counter the con­tin­u­ing gross lies of the Badal Dal, the pre­var­i­ca­tion of the Con­gress party and the im­punity cli­mate to the po­lice, Sikh per­son­al­i­ties of all hues and shades, from all walks of life, with the pri­mary pa­ra­me­ter of the love and in­ter­est of the com­mu­nity at heart, will be fo­cussing on the “sac­ri­lege on­slaught” that has hit Pun­jab over the last three years at the pro­posed Pan­thic As­sem­bly on 20-21 Oc­to­ber in Am­rit­sar.

The Sikh cit­i­zens’ Pan­thic As­sem­bly com­pris­ing 117 in­di­vid­u­als from Pun­jab and out­side has been con­vened to chalk out a well-thought and de­lib­er­ated pol­icy and strat­egy to counter sac­ri­lege of Guru Granth Sahib in the State and neigh­bour­ing states, as well as to en­sure that the guilty of sac­ri­lege and po­lice fir­ing at Be­hbal Kalan, Kotka­pura and Bar­gari are brought to jus­tice.

It will be an en­deav­our to re­vive the his­toric method­ol­ogy of the Sikhs to evolve a Gur­mata –a con­sid­ered con­sen­sus on sub­stan­tive is­sues con­fronting the Sikhs from time to time.

The five-mem­bers Work­ing Group of the newly con­vened Pan­thic As­sem­bly, pre­sent at the press con­fer­ence here, Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh, Sukhdev Singh Bhaur, Prof Jag­mo­han Singh, Kan­war Pal Singh, and Jaswinder Singh Ad­vo­cate said that the day the Pun­jab as­sem­bly failed to ad­dress the is­sue of sac­ri­lege and the SGPC and Jathedar Akal Takht failed to take over, the idea of Pan­thic As­sem­bly ger­mi­nated.

Speak­ing to the me­dia in Ja­land­har, for­mer SGPC Leader Sukhdev Singh Bhaur said, “This is a first baby step to­wards de­moc­ra­ti­sa­tion of the Sikh polity in mod­ern times and the founders hope that this new in­sti­tu­tion hast the scope and po­ten­tial to be­come a trend­set­ter in cre­at­ing a plat­form for di­a­logue and de­lib­er­a­tion on sub­stan­tive is­sues con­fronting the com­mu­nity”. 

“The five-mem­bers Work­ing Group of the newly con­vened Pan­thic As­sem­bly, pre­sent at the press con­fer­ence here, Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh, Sukhdev Singh Bhaur, Prof Jag­mo­han Singh, Kan­war Pal Singh, and Jaswinder Singh Ad­vo­cate said that the day the Pun­jab as­sem­bly failed to ad­dress the is­sue of sac­ri­lege and the SGPC and Jathedar Akal Takht failed to take over, the idea of Pan­thic As­sem­bly ger­mi­nated.”

He clar­i­fied that, “In the first ses­sion of the Pan­thic As­sem­bly, the fo­cus will be only and only sac­ri­lege and blas­phemy in­ci­dents in Pun­jab”.

Elab­o­rat­ing their plans, while ad­dress­ing the me­dia here to­day they said Pan­thic As­sem­bly will lay the foun­da­tions to nul­lify di­vi­sive ten­den­cies in the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal do­main sup­ported by the en­trenched po­lit­i­cal par­ties and brings in a fresh air of in­clu­sive pol­i­tics.

With no respite from the Akali lead­er­ship who con­tin­ues to harp on the ab­solutely base­less “for­eign hand” and ISI an­gle and the Con­gress who con­tin­ues to pay lip ser­vice to the cause of en­sur­ing jus­tice and pun­ish­ing guilty po­lice per­son­nel, clearly in­dicted in the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion re­port and the Peo­ple’s Com­mis­sion of Jus­tice Markandey Katju, this new plat­form, over a pe­riod of two days will ask ques­tions from the es­tab­lished in­sti­tu­tions and po­lit­i­cal par­ties and pre­sent an ex­haus­tive re­port, “Gen­e­sis of Sac­ri­lege in Pun­jab and So­lu­tions”.

“The Pan­thic As­sem­bly will also de­lib­er­ate upon the Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh Com­mis­sion re­port into the cold-blooded mur­der of four Sikh youth who were protest­ing against the burn­ing of Sarups of Guru Granth Sahib in Nako­dar in Feb­ru­ary 1986. This re­port was sub­mit­ted to the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab in March 1987, when Sur­jit Singh Bar­nala was the Chief Min­is­ter. This re­port has nei­ther been made pub­lic nor has any fol­low up ac­tion been taken on it.”

The two of­fi­cial re­ports –Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion Re­port and Jus­tice Jora Singh Com­mis­sion re­port will be ex­am­ined in de­tail. The work­ing and con­clu­sions of the Com­mis­sions and the po­lice SITs formed over the last three years will also be thor­oughly dis­cussed by par­tic­i­pants in the Pan­thic As­sem­bly. The Pan­thic As­sem­bly will also de­lib­er­ate upon the Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh Com­mis­sion re­port into the cold-blooded mur­der of four Sikh youth who were protest­ing against the burn­ing of Sarups of Guru Granth Sahib in Nako­dar in Feb­ru­ary 1986. This re­port was sub­mit­ted to the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab in March 1987, when Sur­jit Singh Bar­nala was the Chief Min­is­ter. This re­port has nei­ther been made pub­lic nor has any fol­low up ac­tion been taken on it.

The ven­omous cam­paign of Sukhbir Singh Badal against the de­vout and lay Sikh, who has risen out of the phoenix, to con­front him and his party, is not only empty rhetoric but is the lan­guage of de­feat by a leader who is on the verge of be­ing dis­carded by his own party and the peo­ple of Pun­jab. His fa­ther, five-time chief min­is­ter of Pun­jab Parkash Singh Badal has at­tempted to jus­tify his be­hav­iour by say­ing, “I see noth­ing wrong in speak­ing to the DGP in the mid­dle of the night. It is wrong to in­fer that I or­dered the po­lice fir­ing.” What Badal fails to an­swer is, “On the morn­ing of 15 Oc­to­ber 2015, when he learnt that the po­lice had re­sorted to un­pro­voked fir­ing with­out his nod (as claimed by him), what ac­tion, if any, did he take?” This is the prime ques­tion to which the peo­ple of Pun­jab seek an an­swer.

“Parkash Singh Badal has at­tempted to jus­tify his be­hav­iour by say­ing, “I see noth­ing wrong in speak­ing to the DGP in the mid­dle of the night. It is wrong to in­fer that I or­dered the po­lice fir­ing.” What Badal fails to an­swer is, “On the morn­ing of 15 Oc­to­ber 2015, when he learnt that the po­lice had re­sorted to un­pro­voked fir­ing with­out his nod (as claimed by him), what ac­tion, if any, did he take?” This is the prime ques­tion to which the peo­ple of Pun­jab seek an an­swer.”

The con­venors of the Pan­thic As­sem­bly were of the con­sid­ered view that the Con­gress-led Pun­jab gov­ern­ment en­acted a scripted lame-duck ses­sion of the Pun­jab As­sem­bly, with­out any fol­low-up ac­tion.  The Pun­jab gov­ern­ment has af­forded an es­cape route for the high-rank­ing ac­cused po­lice of­fi­cials as well as the then po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship. The state is play­ing games for im­punity to po­lice and po­lit­i­cal ca­ma­raderie.

Com­ment­ing on the re­lief of ar­rest granted to for­mer DGP Pun­jab Sumedh Singh Saini by the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court to­day, Kan­warpal Singh said, “It is ironic that the for­mer Pun­jab po­lice chief does not trust his own po­lice now! This move is an ab­solutely clear in­di­ca­tion that the Amarinder Singh-led Con­gress gov­ern­ment will not do any­thing. It cre­ated the hype of ac­tion against the erring po­lice of­fi­cials, with­out do­ing any­thing, thus af­ford­ing an op­por­tu­nity to stall the same”.  He fur­ther said, “This is not a re­lief to Sumedh Saini but to the Chief Min­is­ter him­self.” 

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Sup­port­ing the Barghari Mor­cha whole­heart­edly, the Pan­thic As­sem­bly will ex­plore new op­tions for jus­tice to those killed and in­jured in Oc­to­ber 2015.  Giv­ing a clar­ion call to peo­ple to reach Bar­garhi on 14, they said we are hope­ful that the mam­moth pull of 7 Oc­to­ber at Bar­gari is likely to be re­peated on the third an­niver­sary of the po­lice fir­ing on 14 Oc­to­ber. The de­ter­mi­na­tion of the Mor­cha lead­ers to take the strug­gle to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion will prove a game-changer in the pol­i­tics of Pun­jab.