Amritsar – The sacked ‘Panj Pyaras’ of the Akal Takht opened their office in Amritsar on Friday.
While acknowledging the support offered by Sikh organisations, they clarified that their office should not be taken as a “parallel secretariat” to the Akal Takht.
Satnam Singh Khanda, one of the sacked Panj Pyaras said, “Challenging the Akal Takht’s authority was never on our agenda. Our motto would be to revive the objective for which the Akal Takht was established as the existing jathedars have deviated from their path due to their “helplessness” before their political masters. It is a pity that there is discrimination at the Golden Temple while presenting ‘siropa’ to devotees. We appeal to Sikhs to unite to weed them out to free the highest temporal seat from their clutches.”
The ‘Panj Pyaras’ – Bhai Satnam Singh Khanda, Bhai Satnam Singh, Bhai Major Singh, Bhai Mangal Singh and Bhai Tirlok Singh were dismissed by the SGPC in January after they had “summoned” the five Takht heads at the Akal Takht following their exoneration of the Sirsa dera head, who faced blasphemy charges.
Bhai Khanda claimed that following this they got enough support from the Sikh sangat. Spelling out the activities to be carried out from the new office, he said Sikhs the world over wanted to contact them, but they had no particular address where they could be approached.
“We moved to various parts of the country and even overseas, like Hong Kong and Dubai, and performed 1,511 amrit sanchar ceremonies and other gurmat programmes. “So, an office has been set up in Amritsar where we can be approached. Our duties would be to uphold the Sikh maryada by preaching Gurbani and amrit sanchar among Sikhs and to keep Sikh youth away from drugs,” he said.
He said the existing jathedars and the SGPC executive body had lost the faith of the Sikh community and anything carried out by them would be “suspect” and “politically motivated”.