Screenshot of Class XII history book. (Source: File Photo)

A DAY after it ended services of 96-year-old historian Kirpal Singh, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) Saturday claimed they had no information about defamatory references to Sikh gurus in Punjab School Education Board’s history textbooks.

Former chairperson of PSEB Tajinder Kaur Dhaliwal, too, claimed that she was unaware of any such content in history books. Dhaliwal, who is considered a close confidant of former Punjab deputy chief minister and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, was also appointed Punjab Public Service Commission member during SAD (B) government
in Punjab.

She is also principal of SGPC’s Guru Nanak Dev Girls College Muktsar. The SGPC invited her to speak in the meeting held in Amritsar Friday after which it was decided to end the services of Kirpal Singh.

“No one made any complaint to me during my tenure as PSEB chairperson about any defamatory references to Sikh Gurus. I am not aware about any such content till date,” Dhaliwal told The Sunday Express.

SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal said, “Nobody pointed out such reference earlier. Thus, I cannot comment on it.”

SAD’s spokesperson and former education minister Daljit Singh Cheema said, “We should be asked to apologise about any such references only if someone brought it to our notice and we didn’t correct it. There was no such controversy during the time when we were in the government. Now, a controversy erupted because the Congress government attempted to remove history of Sikh Gurus from the PSEB books and when they formed a committee to correct their mistake, that committee further made defamatory references to Sikh Gurus.”