10 yrs on, justice in 2015 sacrilege case remains a distant dream — ‘Only god can do justice’

Gora Singh has given countless interviews in the past 10 years.

“Police tortured me after Gurdev Singh was murdered in 2016. The CBI questioned me and put me through a lie-detector test. However, villagers stood by me through all this,” Gora Singh said.

Asked what has changed in the past 10 years, Gora Singh said, “One thing that has changed, not only at our gurdwara but all over the state and across the world, is that most of the gurdwaras are now under CCTV camera surveillance. Second, in most gurdwaras, the Bir of Guru Granth Sahib is enclosed in glass cabins. Before 2015, gurdwaras were open places where everyone was welcomed. Everyone is welcome even now, but whenever an unidentified face appears at a gurdwara, we become suspicious. That was not the case before 2015. Back then, we assumed coming to the gurdwara meant coming to seek help or pay respects to Guru Granth Sahib Ji.”

Torn pages of the Guru Granth Sahib were found in the streets of Bargari village on October 12, 2015. It is believed that these were pages from the Bir stolen on June 1, 2015.

After the sacrilege incident, two Sikhs, Krishan Bhagwan Singh and Gurjit Singh, were killed in alleged police firing at Behbal Kalan on October 14, 2015, which created turmoil in the state, leading to the removal of the then Punjab Police chief Sumedh Saini. However, no police officer has been sentenced. The case is still pending in the court. Besides, the investigation into the sacrilege incident has not moved forward for the past three years.

On November 9, 2015, a huge gathering ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ was organised in Amritsar, where serious allegations were levelled against the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in connection with the sacrilege incident.

After the conviction of Dera Sirsa head Gurmeet Ram Rahim in a rape and murder case in 2017, the first arrests in the 2015 sacrilege cases were made in June 2018 during the Congress regime.

Between June and November 2018, police arrested around 26 Dera Sirsa followers in connection with the Bir theft, installation of defamatory posters from September 24 to 25, 2015 and the sacrilege incident reported on October 12, 2015. However, no one has been convicted so far.

Three Dera Sirsa followers were convicted in connection with an incident related to the 2015 sacrilege at Malke village in Moga district.

The Dera and Sikh tussle dates back to May 2007 when Sikhs alleged Ram Rahim of copying the attire and idea behind Guru Gobind Singh’s foundation of Khalsa on the Vaisakhi of 1699. The Dera head is also accused in the 2015 sacrilege case as a “conspirator”.

However, the Bir theft and sacrilege incident triggered a series of sacrilege incidents across the state in the following years.

There is no official data on the number of sacrilege cases registered in Punjab since 2015. Speaking at the Panthic Conference called by the Akal Takht Secretariat at the shrine on July 26, 2021, officiating Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh claimed that at least 250 sacrilege incidents had come to his knowledge between March 2013 and February 2019.

“According to the Akal Takht data, from March 4, 2013, to February 27, 2017, 143 sacrilege incidents occurred (during the SAD-BJP government). We have a list of 104 incidents from February 2017 to February 2019 (during the Congress regime in the state). The data is compiled by Sikh organisations,” Sukhdev Singh Phagwara, spokesman for the Alliance of Sikh Organisations, said.

Moreover, between 2016 and 2025, 15 individuals accused or suspected of different sacrilege cases were murdered.

On the political front, the SAD remained the biggest loser. After the Bargari incident, the party lost its core vote bank — the Sikhs — and has not recovered as yet.

Captain Amarinder Singh had promised justice in the sacrilege incidents after becoming the chief minister in 2017. The 2015 sacrilege case was pursued during his tenure, and some Dera Sirsa followers were arrested. However, he later faced allegations that his team, including the then Advocate General of Punjab Atul Nanda, “mishandled” the case of police firing at Kotakpura, related to sacrilege, in which two Sikhs were killed.

This led to the resignation of IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, who was investigating the Kotakpura and Behbal Kalan police firing case.

Kunwar Vijay Pratap later joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) before the 2022 Assembly Elections and was elected as the MLA from Amritsar North.

He was the party’s poster boy during the Assembly elections campaign. However, Kunwar Vijay Pratap was eventually sidelined in the AAP government. He later believed that his “party was not serious about delivering justice in the sacrilege cases”.