WSN Ex­clu­sive Re­port: Scholar-sa­vant Gi­ani Am­rik Singh of Chandi­garh bru­tally as­saulted by Damdami Tak­sal sup­port­ers at Gur­d­wara Park Av­enue, Southall, UK, leav­ing Sikhs across the world an­gry and per­turbed. WSN learns that Singh Sabha Slough who had in­vited Gi­ani Am­rik Singh is pur­su­ing po­lice pro­ceed­ings against the at­tack­ers.

The Sikh peo­ple lost a shade of ci­vil­ity and the Sikh spirit of tol­er­ance shrunk fur­ther and reached its nadir when a group of diehard ul­tra-or­tho­dox Sikhs, pub­licly pro­claim­ing al­le­giance to the Sikh sem­i­nary Damdami Tak­sal in Pun­jab, cow­ardly as­saulted Sikh preacher Gi­ani Am­rik Singh, who hails from Chandi­garh and is ap­plauded by Sikh con­gre­ga­tions as a schol­arly ex­po­nent of Sikh teach­ings as en­shrined in Guru Granth Sahib. 

Speak­ing to WSN on the phone line from Lon­don, Gi­ani Am­rik Singh said, “Yes, I was bru­tally as­saulted but I am in Chardikala. We had a very good his­toric pro­gramme in Slough and I pro­fusely talked about the strug­gle of 1978 and 1984. The or­gan­is­ers did an ex­cel­lent job and it never crossed my mind that this would hap­pen.”

“Ex­hort­ing the Sikh San­gat to rise up to such el­e­ments, Gi­ani Am­rik Singh said, “If the San­gat does not stop these peo­ple in the ranks, there will be more such in­ci­dents, which will put the whole com­mu­nity to dis­re­pute. It is time to make cause with these peo­ple with­out any de­lay.””

Gi­ani Am­rik Singh was in the United King­dom at the in­vi­ta­tion of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Slough. He was part of the many Sikh schol­ars and ac­tivists-Bhai Gur­dev Singh of Aus­tralia from Ak­hand Kir­tani Jatha, Nir­wair Khalsa team­mates from Eng­land and Bhai Ram Singh of the Damdami Tak­sal Jatha, not ow­ing al­le­giance to Chowk Mehta’s Baba Har­nam Singh Dhumma, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ak­hand Kir­tani Jatha and some mem­bers of the Mis­sion­ary Col­leges. They par­tic­i­pated in the 2-day widely tele­cast over the UK from Singh Sabha Slough.

 ਇਹ ਖਬਰ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਵਿਚ ਪੜੋ

WSN has re­li­ably learnt that the con­gre­ga­tions in the Gur­d­wara Sahib were or­gan­ised to re­solve dif­fer­ences amongst Sikh schol­ars and var­i­ous groups. Gi­ani Am­rik Singh said, “The pro­gram was very good. Each group and per­son­al­ity re­spected the other. It was a unique event which could lead to re­solv­ing long-stand­ing is­sues and con­cerns.”

On 7 May at around 11 am, when Gi­ani Am­rik Singh was mak­ing his way to the stage to start his ser­mons, an el­derly Sikh stood up and shouted a few words, ap­par­ently, “You can­not speak here.” He then rushed to the mi­cro­phone of the stage, where the stage sec­re­tary Gur­sha­ran Singh Mand was still speak­ing. Sud­denly, the stage sec­re­tary asked Gi­ani Am­rik Singh to apol­o­gise for his ser­mons. Gi­ani Am­rik Singh po­litely re­fused and said, “If I have said any­thing wrong or li­bel­lous, prove it and I will apol­o­gise to the Gur San­gat.” Then-pres­i­dent Gur­mail Singh Malhi and his team then asked  Gi­ani Am­rik Singh “to ac­com­pany them into an an­te­room to dis­cuss the is­sue.” It is clear that the whole episode was pre-planned and well-or­ches­trated whereas Gi­ani Am­rik Singh thought that he was go­ing there “to fur­ther cap­i­talise and en­hance the good at­mos­phere” that had been built dur­ing the two-day pro­gramme in Slough.

“Yes, I was bru­tally as­saulted but I am in Chardikala. We had a very good his­toric pro­gramme in Slough and I pro­fusely talked about the strug­gle of 1978 and 1984. The or­gan­is­ers did an ex­cel­lent job and it never crossed my mind that this would hap­pen.”

Speak­ing to WSN on the phone line from Lon­don, Gi­ani Am­rik Singh

The or­tho­dox cul­prits who at­tacked Gi­ani Am­rik Singh in­cluded among oth­ers Cha­ran Singh Birm­ing­ham, Ragh­bir Singh of Awaz-e-Qaum and Paramjit Singh. Sig­nif­i­cantly, they are all el­derly peo­ple and had ab­solutely no sense of shame while ex­e­cut­ing their cow­ardly act.  While at­tack­ing Gi­ani Am­rik Singh, away from the reach of the Sikh San­gat, they re­port­edly said, “Pin him down. Do not al­low him to go scot-free.”

Though this was os­ten­si­bly done to avoid a scuf­fle in the pres­ence of Guru Granth Sahib and to avoid mis­de­meanour amongst the devo­tees, the real rea­son was that these ul­tra-Sikh su­prema­cists wanted to launch their cow­ardly at­tack away from the reach of the CCTV cam­eras. Gi­ani Am­rik Singh was beaten by fisticuffs, badly kicked and his tur­ban was re­moved. Even then, ty­ing his tur­ban,  Gi­ani Am­rik Singh reached the an­te­room. Ob­vi­ously, the at­tack­ers did not reach the room and were show­ing shame­ful glee at re­mov­ing the tur­ban of the renowned scholar.

“Writ­ing about the in­ci­dent, Jagdeesh Singh of Kesri Lehar, UK has said, “ The thug­gish at­tack on Par­charak Gi­ani Am­rik Singh once again re­veals an en­dur­ing tu­mor­ous can­cer within the Sikh com­mu­nity which man­i­fests every so of­ten.””

There has been wide­spread crit­i­cism of the at­tack and Pan­thic cir­cles are seized with the sit­u­a­tion, plan­ning to take up the mat­ter to the high­est level.  This au­thor had no replies to the queries of Gi­ani Am­rik Singh, “When will this stop? Who will bell the cat? Who will stop these peo­ple who for a very long time are spread­ing may­hem and dishar­mony in Sikh cir­cles?

Writ­ing about the in­ci­dent, Jagdeesh Singh of Kesri Lehar, UK has said, “ The thug­gish at­tack on Par­charak Gi­ani Am­rik Singh once again re­veals an en­dur­ing tu­mor­ous can­cer within the Sikh com­mu­nity which man­i­fest every so of­ten.”

Ex­press­ing per­sonal pain and agony, he lamented, “I do not mind the beat­ing, but re­mov­ing my tur­ban has re­ally hurt me. I am a fam­ily man with sons and daugh­ters and daugh­ters-in-law. Fac­ing them is not go­ing to be easy.”

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Ex­hort­ing the Sikh San­gat to rise up to such el­e­ments, Gi­ani Am­rik Singh said, “If the San­gat does not stop these peo­ple in the ranks, there will be more such in­ci­dents, which will put the whole com­mu­nity to dis­re­pute. It is time to make cause with these peo­ple with­out any de­lay.”

Is some­one lis­ten­ing?