https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB2Rd3sACvk

A delegation representing 100 Sikh organisations of the US and Canada has landed in Punjab to attend the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’, Sikh congregation called by various Sikh organisations on November 10.

The delegation said it was in Punjab to hold deliberations for restoring the sovereignty of the Akal Takht and reviving the tradition of ‘Sarbat Khalsa’.

“We also want the appointment of a visionary Akal Takht jathedar without any political interference,” delegation leader Harinder Singh said on Friday at a press conference here.

The delegation, however, did not name any specific politician who was the interfering factor.

Harinder Singh even ducked a straight question on whether the delegation endorsed the opinion of certain ‘panthic’ bodies that Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal was to blame for the ongoing crisis.

“Whoever they are, we are here for the cause,” he said. “There is a need to take legal and administrative steps for independent functioning of the Akal Takht and its jathedar, who should be visionary and accountable to the Sikh community,” the delegation stated in its press release.

It stated that the “jathedar” to be designated at the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ should function till April 2016, when the Sikh masses will “assemble again at the Akal Takht for the overall transformation of the Sikh institution”.