An unwarranted controversy has been erupted when a girl claimed that she was allegedly denied entry to the Golden Temple because she was sporting a temporary tattoo of Tricolour on her face, a general practice by visitors who get it done while going to watch ‘Beating the Retreat’ ceremony at Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post every evening.
SGPC has submitted an apology if any of its employees misbehaved with any visitor, yet the Sikh body has strongly condemned the narrative being created against the Sikhs on social media about the viral conversation between the female devotee and the sewadar (SGPC employee) deputed at the shrine.
It can be seen in the video that after focusing on the tattoo on her face, she was seen complaining to a man, who reportedly accompanied her, that the sewadar had interrupted her. A heated exchange words started soon after the man questioned the sewadar. “Sardar jee, you stopped this gudia (girl) from entering. What was the reason,” he asked.
It was being claimed that the sewadar reportedly objected over the flag painted on her face. The man further questioned him “Is it not India? To this, the sewadar said, “No. This is Punjab”.
The woman, too, entered into the argument saying he was talking bakwaas’ (nonsense) as if the Golden Temple was not in India. This was enough to arouse the tempers of the sewadar who tried to stop them from capturing the instance on mobile camera.
The issue gained momentum when a 40-second video clip went viral on social media captioned as ‘Khalistanis taking over Golden Temple!’
SGPC tenders a half-hearted apology
The SGPC and Temple management has received massive online backlash past this video went viral. SGPC general secretary Gurcharan Singh Grewal said the issue was being blown out of proportion to give it a political colour.
“We are apologetic over misbehavior on the part of any of our employees towards the visitors. Taking a prompt action, we have ordered an inquiry into the incident. Yet his bad behavior should not be stretched to make it a patriotic issue and defame the Sikh religion,” he said.
He said many attempts had been made, in the recent past, to tarnish the image of Sikh religion and challenge its principles under the deep-rooted conspiracies. “Every religion has its principles and codes that have to be followed,” he said.
Clarifying the instance, Sarbjeet Singh, the sewadar at the parikrama (circumambulation), claimed that he had intercepted the female devotee only as she was inappropriately dressed. He said that he had apprised her about the ‘Gurmaryada’ (code of conduct) of the place which has to be followed by every visitor, but “my advice was misinterpreted and presented in a wrong way on the social media”.
However, neither the SGPC and the sevadar cleared the air on the statement ‘This is Punjab, not India’.
Instead, they have started maligning the victim girl, on one hand the sevadar is accusing her of wearing inappropriate dress, various khalistani, AAP, and congress supporters have started attacking the victim.
A tweeter handle stated that, the girl didn’t have the tricolor tattoo on her face earlier. She came back with a tricolor on her face to propagate the fake flag drama and dehumanize Sikhs/SGPC. These disgusting creatures are Kalank to humanity, Punjab police must take action against her.
However, we did a small fact check, and found that females have been visiting Golden Temple in skirts and other decent clothes, and no one has made an issue out of it, at least till now.
Well, this is a well-planned controversy hatched by the SGPC and their people. They are talking about the so called ‘Maryada’ and defending this act of denying entry to this girl. However, seems they have forgotten the evil acts of terrorist Bhindarawale, who misused the Akal Takht, he stored weapons in the campus, which is indeed a ‘Be-adabi’ in all sense.
We have seen how different factions of SGPC kept on fighting with each other, that too inside the temple campus, but then nobody talks about ‘maryada’. We have seen how an innocent was killed in Golden Temple, in the name of blasphemy, but even then their ‘maryada’ wasn’t impacted.
This is a shameless act by SGPC staff, and now they are inhumanely defending it as well.
