Haryana Sikh leader, 45 others sent to judicial custody

KURUKSHETRA - A local court here Thursday sent Sikh leader Jagdish Singh Jhinda and 45 other Sikh protesters, who were arrested by in Haryana’s Kurukshetra district, to 14 days’ judicial custody.

According to police, nearly 20 of these 45 protesters were from Ambala district.

“Jhinda was arrested in the morning while the remaining protesters were arrested in the afternoon while they were trying to forcibly enter into Gurdwara Chhati Pathshai (Sixth Master) here yesterday (Wednesday),” said a police official here Thursday.

“We had presented them in a court today (Thursday) from where they were sent to 14 days’ judicial remand,” he added.

Jhinda, who heads an ad hoc Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) in Haryana, had decided to take over control of Sikh shrines in the state by Wednesday from the Punjab-based SGPC.

Hundreds of Sikhs from all across the state gathered here Wednesday to take part in the protest. They also disrupted rail traffic to protest their leaders’ arrests.

The Sikh leadership in Haryana accuses the SGPC, based in Amritsar, of neglecting the state’s gurdwaras and Sikhs, despite these shrines contributing a revenue of Rs.10 crore to the SGPC kitty annually.

However, the SGPC, which is headquartered at the Golden Temple complex in Punjab’s Amritsar city, has expressed satisfaction over the arrests of the haryana Sikh leaders.

“For the last many days they (Jhinda and his supporters) were giving statements that they can do anything to gain control of Haryana gurdwaras. They were giving open challenge to anyone and were posing a serious threat to law and order,” said Punjab-based SGPC’s president Avtar Singh Makkar Thursday.

“The government should not allow them to gather in such huge numbers. But now we are satisfied that no untoward incident would take place,” said Makkar.

The Jhinda faction of the SGPC in Haryana forcibly took control of Gurdwara Chhati Pathshai here, 110 km from Chandigarh, also in September last year. The Punjab-based SGPC regained control of the shrine after a day.