Six employees of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on Friday appeared for questioning before the special investigation team probing the “missing saroops” case.
This comes a day after the gurdwara panel handed over the record sought by the special investigation team (SIT) for the probe into the alleged disappearance of 328 saroops of the Guru Granth Sahib.
They appeared before the SIT at the office of Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, under whose supervision the team is operating.
Officials, led by AIG (Vigilance) Jagatpreet Singh, questioned the employees for over four hours. Amanbir Singh Siali, legal adviser to the SGPC, who was among the employees questioned today, said there were 56 persons who were earlier questioned by the Akal Takht-appointed Ishar Singh committee.
The SGPC had uploaded the report on its official website in 2020. “The SIT wanted to question all of them,” Siali said. Of the 56, 16 were named in the FIR lodged on December 7 and six serving employees appeared before the SIT.
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The SIT enquired from them about the remaining 34 officials. Siali said they informed that “many of them had retired while several were out of the country, and some had died”. The SIT asked each of them the procedure of getting the saroops published from the SGPC printing press, maintaining the record and issuing numbers to each of them.
Siali said as per directions of officiating Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Kuldip Singh Gargaj, they cooperated with the SIT. The SIT was constituted to recover the saroops on December 22.
The complaint was lodged by Baldev Singh Wadala, a sacked hazuri raagi of the Golden Temple and the head of the Sikh Sadhbhawna Dal, which has been spearheading the campaign over the issue for the past five years.
After the incident had come to light, the Akal Takht — the highest temporal seats for the Sikhs — had formed a three-member panel headed by advocate Ishar Singh.
SGPC task force ‘detains’ two Tarn Taran policemen
Two Tarn Taran policemen were “detained” by the task force of the SGPC after they allegedly entered the Golden Temple complex to arrest two persons.
They allowed the policemen to leave the premises only after the intervention of senior officials. They belonged to the Crime Investigation Agency of the Tarn Taran police.
The policemen, wearing plain clothes, were noticed by the task force members when they arrested the persons, leading to a commotion.
The Sikh body officials were annoyed at the police personnel for entering the shrine without prior approval.
The SGPC officials maintained that devotees from India and abroad visit the shrine and entering of the police sent a wrong message. They said the Tarn Taran police should have taken prior approval from the body