6 Injured in Clash at Golden Temple

CHANDIGARH: Up to six persons on Saturday sustained injuries following a clash  between a group of youngsters and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) task force at Akal Takht (highest Sikh Temporal Seat) inside the Golden Temple complex on the 31st anniversary of Operation Bluestar.

Sources said while the morning programmes went off peacefully, in the afternoon, a few youngsters raised pro-Khalistan slogans and clashed with the SGPC task force,which left six persons injured.

Confirming the clash, Amritsar Police Commissioner (CP) Jatinder Singh Aulakh said,” There were around 15 youth and at around  2 pm, when everyone had almost left the Golden Temple complex, they started shouting slogans and clashed with the task force after a minor scuffle. A few of them have been injured. Action will be taken once the task force files a complaint with the police. No untoward incident was reported and everything went off peacefully.”

Being unwell, Shiromani Akali Dal (Mann) president and former MP Simranjit Singh Mann couldn’t reach the Akal Takht. Senior party leader and former MP Dhian Singh Mand led the party activists, which included a sizeable gathering of youth brandishing swords, who raised slogans like ‘Khalisthan Zindabad’. Earlier in the day, the heavy task force of SGPC present in the Golden Temple premises watched slogans being raised as mute spectators as they did not want to indulge in any kind of confrontation with the radicals.