Using Guru Granth Sahib as shield is sacrilege; no law and order: Opp

The SAD leader said that complete anarchy and a fear psychosis pervades the state with murders and gangsterism being the order of the day. “This truly is the era of reign of terror actively sponsored by the powers that be in Delhi and Punjab,” he said.

Sukhbir however said that “as the representative of Panth and Punjab”, the SAD will continue safeguard unity of Punjabis, and peace and communal harmony even if we have to make supreme sacrifices for that.

Coming down heavily against the perpetrators of Thursday incident at Ajnala, Sukhbir said, “This is shocking, unbelievable and unforgivable. Never in Sikh history has anyone ever shown such brazen disrespect to the holy Guru Granth Sahib as was done at Ajanala”.

He said that peaceful protests and processions were a democratic right of the people and his party full supports it too. “But the way it is becoming a fashion among some to use our sacred Guru at dharnas, protests or processions to promote their own interests is unforgivable.”

Sukhbir said that a conspiracy seems to be at work to render the peaceful democratic voice of Punjabis irrelevant by actively sponsoring and promoting disruptive and lawless elements. “Otherwise how do you explain complete administrative paralysis and why there was no attempt by the govt to ensure that its writ runs in the state. We have no government worth the name in Punjab,” he asked.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa said that there was a “complete collapse of law and order in the state.”

Bajwa said while on one hand Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann was holding a progressive investment summit to woo the investors from across the globe, on the other the police had to run for shelter to rescue themselves from a group of people who were seeking release of a person locked up in police custody.

“Under these circumstances, who would come to invest in Punjab? We all know how the gangsters are calling shots from the jails and they frequently use mobile phones to fetch ransom from the prospective targets. The jail department which comes directly under Bhagwant Mann has failed to fix this problem and every now and then mobile phones are discovered from the secured environs of the prison premises,” added Bajwa who is also Punjab’s Leader of the Opposition.