CHANDIGARH: As the election campaign entered it’s final phase in Punjab, a case of sacrilege involving the Guru Granth Sahib was reported from a gurdwara at Hathoa village in Sangrur district on Sunday, and the locals suspect a political link to the incident.
A local resident said that when the priest of the gurdwara went to open the shrine in the morning, he saw the lock on the gates broken. Inside, the Guru Granth Sahib was burning. He immediately called the president of the gurdwara management committee and the villagers.
“We suspect that around 80 per cent of the holy book was burnt,’’ he said, adding that it did not look like a case of a short circuit.
A large number of villagers gathered at the gurdwara. They said that someone had tried to create rift in the village amid the elections and demanded action against those responsible.
Since the situation in the village was tense, armed police personnel were deployed there.
Police sources said that CCTV cameras in the gurdwara were not working.
Sandeep Garg, Senior Superintendent of Police, Sangrur, said the police had begun a probe into the matter.
Warning of strict action against those responsible, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh said that divisive forces that had tried to polarise the state ahead of the Assembly elections were again rearing their heads and would face the consequences of their actions.
Amarinder said the deliberate act of mischief was a part of a chain of similar events that had rocked the state in the run-up to the Assembly polls.