Missing saroops: SGPC draws flak

AMRITSAR: The U-turn of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on registration of FIRs against employees found guilty of wrongdoing in case of missing saroops has raised several questions.
NGO Punjab Human Rights Organisation (PHRO) has threatened to move court if the Akal Takht acting jathedar failed to take cognisance of disappearance of saroops.
Sarabjit Singh Verka, principal investigator of PHRO, which is led by Justice Ajit Singh Bains (retd), expressed surprise at the statement of SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal of not taking legal action. “This despite admitting that there was tampering with evidence, fabrication, fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation of funds and disappearance of evidence, as proved during the inquiry by a sub-committee constituted by Akal Takht,” he alleged.
Talking to TOI, Verka said, “It is a U-Turn by the SGPC executive from its previous decision of filing an FIR, which was taken in its last meeting. It is nothing but an attempt to hush up the matter.” He added that the PHRO had been conducting an independent inquiry into alleged financial misappropriation, “including that of golak money”.
PHRO also questioned the SGPC president’s silence on the May 2016 fire incident, in which 80 saroops were damaged. “Several saroops caught fire at Gurdwara Ramsar in Amritsar. Despite the matter being brought to the knowledge of then SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar, the issue was suppressed,” he alleged. He threatened to move court on this issue too. SGPC member and one of the founders of SAD (Democratic) Sewa Singh Sekhwan asked, “Executive body has not informed where the saroops are now, on whose instructions they were given to the sangat, in whose possession they are and if are they being kept in accordance with maryada.”
He also called SGPC’s executive body meeting an eyewash. On making the investigation report public, he said it was yet to be seen whether the panel would upload the complete 1,000-page report or just the conclusion on its website. Sekhwan, who was education minister in the Parkash Singh Badal government, also expressed reservations over no police complaint being filed.
Another SGPC member, Gurmeet Singh alleged that low-rung SGPC employees were being made scapegoats while those on higher posts had not been touched in the report. He advocated severe punishment to those found guilty of “desecration of the saroops”.