Author: Ajay Bharadwaj
Publication: DNA (Daily News & Analysis)
Date: August 24, 2007
URL: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1117308
Pakistani fundamentalists' continuing siege
of Bhai Taro Singh gurudwara in Lahore has galvanised the Centre and Indian
Sikh bodies into action.
External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee
told the Lok Sabha on Thursday that India was seeking details about reports
that the gurudwara had been taken over and desecrated.
News has also emerged that Pakistan's Evacuee
Trust Property Board has ordered the demolition of 18 shops adjacent to the
gurudwara to give Muslims a separate entry. Some locals believe that the Sikhs'
place of worship was originally a mazaar of Pir Kaku Shah.
Members of the Parmjit Singh Sarna Pradhan
Delhi Gurdwara Sikh Prabhandak Committee are planning to visit Lahore to take
note of the Pakistan government's inaction in handling the situation, Daily
Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reported yesterday.
"We will hold a meeting within a week
to discuss the sensitive issue," Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee
(PSGPC) chief Bishin Singh said.
But the leader of the group occupying the
gurudwara, Sohail Butt, told the media that his followers would resist if
the government and Sikhs tried to block their entry to the gurudwara. "A
large number of Muslims want to pay homage to Shah Kaku who was buried in
the gurudwara premises," Butt said.
The Sikh Guru Nanak Committee had already
taken up the issue with the Evacuee Board on July 8, after the occupation.
The committee has alleged that board chairman, Lt Gen (retd) Zulfiqar Ali
Khan, was indifferent to the entreaties because it involved a minority community.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandak Committee
(SGPC) has from time to time expressed concern at the poor repair of the Sikh
shrines in Pakistan.
There are an estimated 175 gurudwaras in Pakistan
of which about a dozen are being run in accordance with the Sikh tenets.
The rest are either lying derelict or have
been taken over by the locals who have erased all historical symbols, said
SPGC president Avtar Singh Makkar.
He said more than 10,000 Sikh devotees visit
Sikh shrines in Pakistan every year from Punjab and other parts of India.
Makkar said that things had started looking up after the PSGP was constituted
a few years ago. In the end, most gurdwaras in Pakistan are in a state of
disrepair because Sikh devotees are barred from visiting them.
The only places where the Sikhs are allowed
to pray are the historic gurdwaras in Nankana Sahib, Kartarpur, and some in
Lahore.
As for the standoff at the Bhai Taro Singh
gurudwara, even the local shop owners, whose outlets are to be demolished,
have blamed Khan, the Evacuee Board chief, for allowing the Muslim occupants
to renovate the Pir Shah Kaku shrine. The makeover, the shop owners say, created
the opening for the takeover.
