Jammu, Oct 10: In a scathing condemnation of the shocking desecration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji at a gurdwara in Koulpur village, Vijaypur tehsil of Samba district, the National Sikh Front (NSF) has vowed to pursue unrelenting justice, equating the act to the murder of the Sikh community’s living Guru.
The incident, which unfolded in the dead of night on October 7, has sent ripples of outrage through the Sikh diaspora, reigniting painful memories of past sacrileges that have scarred Punjab and beyond. Police swiftly arrested Manjit Singh alias Billa, a local resident of Koulpur, after he allegedly doused five sacred saroops (physical embodiments) of the holy scripture with inflammable oil and set them ablaze at Gurdwara Singh Sabha. The act, captured in preliminary investigations as a deliberate and premeditated assault on the faith’s eternal guide, has prompted immediate protests, with enraged villagers reportedly razing the accused’s home in a fit of communal fury.
Addressing a charged meeting of NSF office-bearers here today under his chairmanship, S. Varinderjeet Singh, the organization’s resolute leader, likened the sacrilege to a sextuple homicide. “As affirmed by the Supreme Court of India, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is not mere scripture but our living Guru, revered as the eternal soul of Sikhism,” he thundered. “This fiend has incinerated six saroops—an abomination that demands nothing short of a murder trial for each, culminating in the gallows. Any leniency would mock the blood of our ancestors and the tears of the faithful.
“Eyewitness accounts and police reports paint a harrowing picture: the flames devoured the sacred volumes in the dimly lit sanctum, discovered at dawn by early-morning devotees whose cries of anguish echoed through the misty Samba countryside. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the apex body overseeing Sikh shrines, has since transported the charred remnants—termed Agni Bhet Saroops—to Amritsar for dignified rites, while imposing a lifetime ban on the gurdwara’s management committee, barring them and their kin from future roles in any Sikh institution. Senior SGPC officials, including Secretary Pratap Singh, decried the episode as “unprecedented in its depravity,” urging forensic probes to unearth any deeper conspiracy.
The NSF gathering, swelling with over 200 members from across Jammu and Kashmir, erupted in unified chants of Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh as resolutions poured forth. Unanimously, the body resolved to lobby for exemplary punishment, invoking Sikh maryada’s unyielding stance against blasphemy. “This is no isolated folly,” S. Varinderjeet Singh cautioned, drawing parallels to the 2015 Bargari sacrilege that ignited statewide turmoil. “It wounds the soul of every Sikh, from the rugged hills of Jammu to the golden fields of Punjab. We will not rest until the noose tightens around such venom.
“In a proactive bid to unearth the roots of this tragedy and fortify safeguards, the NSF announced the formation of a five-member fact-finding committee, helmed by S. Kulwant Singh Bhatti, the organization’s president. Flanked by seasoned activists—General Secretary GS Bali, S. Gurtej Singh Prince, S. Randhir Singh Bali, and S. Darshan Singh—the panel will descend on Koulpur imminently. Their mandate: a meticulous probe into the prelude to the blaze, scrutiny of gurdwara security lapses, and blueprint for ironclad protocols to shield sacred spaces from future violations. “We owe this to Guru Ji’s legacy,” Bhatti affirmed. “Prevention must eclipse punishment; our gurdwaras, beacons of peace, cannot become pyres of hate.
“As tensions simmer in Samba—with Youth Empowerment Society (YES) and other outfits echoing the NSF’s fury—the incident underscores a darker undercurrent in J&K’s borderlands, where communal harmony hangs by a thread. Police, meanwhile, have registered an FIR under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and anti-sacrilege laws, with Superintendent of Police Samba assuring a “watertight” probe. Yet, for the NSF and the broader Sikh fraternity, words ring hollow without the ultimate reckoning: the hangman’s knot for a crime that scorched more than paper—it seared the spirit of a people.
The NSF has called upon the Union Home Ministry and J&K administration to expedite trials, warning that half-measures could fan embers into infernos. In the shadow of this blasphemy, Jammu’s Sikh voices rise not in vengeance, but in vigilant resolve: to honor the Guru by safeguarding His word, unyielding and unbroken.
