Temples should be included in Sacrilege Bill in Punjab: BJP

Chandigarh, July 6 (IANS) BJP National General Secretary Tarun Chugh on Sunday demanded that Hindu temples and idols should also be included in the proposed Sacrilege Bill, for which a special Punjab Assembly session has been called on July 10 and 11.

Chugh regretted that the Bill is being brought by the Bhagwant Mann government even after more than three years of its promise made in the election manifesto.

“But better late than never,” he said and demanded that the Bill must also include “Pran Pratishthit” Hindu temples in Punjab.

Chugh said that lately there have been a number of incidents in which Hindu temples were targeted.

The BJP, he said, holds Guru Granth Sahib in the highest esteem, so the party welcomes the Bill, but at the same time Hindu idols should also be accorded respect.

Meanwhile, Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan has called the Legislative Assembly, which was adjourned sine die on May 5, to meet at 11 am on July 10 under the second proviso to Rule 16 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha (Punjab Legislative Assembly).

A government spokesperson said the law against sacrilege would prevent a repeat of such incidents in the future.

“For a long time, there has been a demand for making a law against sacrilege in Punjab. The Mann government will fulfil the demand of the people,” said the spokesperson.

The incident of sacrilege of Sri Guru Granth Sahib that caught nationwide attention took place in Behbal Kalan village of Faridkot district in 2015, and the subsequent police firing on protesters that claimed two lives was raked up by the Congress against the SAD-BJP combine government in the 2017 Assembly polls.

Even in 2022 polls, in which the current state government came at the helm, the incidents continued to rock the state’s political sphere as successive governments are under fire for failing to deliver justice in the cases.

In the run-up to the last assembly polls, Justice Ranjit Singh (retd), who headed the commission into the alleged incidents of sacrilege and the subsequent police firing, placed then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch, and then DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in the dock.

He castigated the Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda, whose chief and self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence for raping two of his disciples and a life term for a journalist's killing, for the incident of sacrilege.

--IANS

vg/dan