Former MP says SGPC ex-chief secretary, who died, targeted wrongly

JALANDHAR: Former Rajya Sabha member Tarlochan Singh has alleged that former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) chief secretary Harcharan Singh, who died in the wee hours on Saturday, was “much stressed and pained as SGPC wrongly targeted him” in the missing saroops case. “He was not at all involved in any wrongdoing. SGPC targeted him as he exposed their working after resigning from his post and they nursed a grudge against him,” he claimed.
After 12 hours of Harcharan’s death, SGPC on Saturday evening released “brief conclusions report” submitted to the Akal Takht jathedar and its reading showed that he was least responsible or culpable among all those mentioned in the entire episode. However, SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal had accused him of connivance with lower-level employees and announced that legal action would be taken against him.
“Harcharah Singh was an honest man and shared his pain and anguish with me over such outrageous allegations levelled against him, whereas he always tried to do good for the community and to the institution. The case pertained to the period before he joined SGPC, but he was targeted only due to the reason that he exposed the wrongdoings in SGPC and its ‘political masters’ who are controlling it, in a book he authored after his tenure and also in his interviews to the media,” Tarlochan told TOI on Sunday.
Tarlochan, who also remained vice-chairman of National Commission for Minorities, “We have lost a genuine Sikh intellectual due to unfounded allegations. Earlier too, SGPC treated prominent Sikh scholars shabbily and targeted them. Now, they should apologise to the entire community.”