CHANDIGARH: Eight years after the incidents took place, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday apologized to the Sikh community for the 2015 sacrilege cases which happened during his party’s government formed in alliance with the BJP, and appealed to dissident Akali leaders to come under one umbrella.
SAD has lost two consecutive assembly polls, with the Congress and AAP forming the government in Punjab. While addressing a gathering on the 103rd foundation day of SAD commemorated at Shaheed Baba Gurbax Singh Jee gurdwara near Akal Takht in Amritsar, Badal, while seeking an apology from the Sikh community, said that it was a lapse on the part of the then SAD-BJP government that they could not arrest the culprits behind the sacrilege incidents.
He added that due to political pressure, the government was compelled to refer the matter to the CBI. “We apologise for our failure that we could not arrest the perpetrators and we will ensure that the real culprits are punished,” Badal said.