Over 12 injured in clash between protesting Sikhs, police in Patiala

PATIALA: Over one dozen persons including two policemen were injured in a clash that broke out in Nararu village of Patiala district here on Sunday evening. The clash took place after the police resorted to mild lathicharge on the Sikhs protesting against the alleged biases of a local committee of Gurudwara Sahib in the village.
However, the police denied resorting to lathicharge and claimed that the cops intervened only to prevent a clash between the protesters and the commuters who had objected to their protest and blockade of road. The police said that the protesting Sikhs attacked the cops on duty with swords leaving two of them injured on the spot.
On other hand, the protesting Sikhs alleged that the newly formed committee was biased towards the former head Granthi of the Gurudwara who had completed his one year term only ten days ago. They alleged that the former Granthi Surinder Singh was firstly denied of Shri Guru Granth Sahib. They said that Surinder wanted to complete his pending religious ceremonies promised with the villagers but the local Gurudwara committee in a case did not want.
The police said that the Sikhs from various Sikh Organisations had come into the support of former Granthi Surinder Singh and had blocked the main Rajpura-Patiala-highway. The police said that when the protesters were asked to lift up their protest from the highway as it was provoking the commuters to land in the clash, the protesters allegedly took out their swords and attacked the police team.
The police said that local villagers did not want the former Granthi Surinder Singh to leave the village and had provided him a house to stay in the village and carry with the pending religious ceremonies and training of students.
SP detective Patiala Harmeet Singh Hundal said, “Our two cops have been left injured after the protesters attacked them. We only intervened to stop the protesters landing in a clash with the public that had raised objections to the blockade of road. We want peace to prevail first. The protesters had lifted up their protest at around 8.20pm after an assurance that a committee from SGPC will come and decide over the matter. No case has been registered yet against anyone.”
Surinder Singh, former Granthi at local Gurudwara in Nararu village said, “I had been performing Kirtan (prayers) from last sixteen years with the Nanaksar Jatha and had last year joined as a Granthi but after completing my term the villagers wanted me to stay here and continue with training the students. The committee of local Gurudwara, which falls under the control of SGPC continued to refuse the villagers to give Shri Guru Granth Sahib for religious ceremonies and even the sarpanch was refused as the committee did not want me to perform anywhere. The committee instead gave a complaint against me of forcibly taking Shri Guru Granth Sahib following which we staged a protest.”
United Sikh Party Rajpura president said, “The village sarpanch and Damdami Taksal Rajpura president BS Parwana along with us had staged a protest when police cane-charged us leaving more than 14 persons injured.”