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All 169 saroops accounted for: Banga-based sect
The Nabh Kanwal Raja Sahib trust claims the government misled the public about 169 Guru Granth Sahib saroops, asserting accurate records exist for all.
The Banga-based religious place named Nabh Kanwal Raja Sahib on Thursday accused the government of misleading the public and asserted that it has records of all the 169 saroops (sacred copies) of Guru Granth Sahib in its possession.
This comes a day after Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, during his address at AAP’s Maghi Mela conference, claimed that the special investigation team (SIT) has traced 169 missing saroops (sacred copies) from a religious sect based in Banga. Later, AAP state media in-charge Baltej Pannu, giving a detailed breakup, said that of the 169, 115 saroops were numbered, and the remaining 54 had no serial numbers, and records exist for 30 saroops.
In a press conference, the trust members said that they fully cooperated in the investigations carried out by the SIT, which visited the premises for four consecutive days, but alleged that the facts made public are false and misleading.
“Both CM and SIT are right when they claim that 169 saroops of Sri Guru Granth Sahib were found in the premises of Raja Sahib, but the subsequent assertion that 139 saroops have no official record or serial number is completely false and misleading,” said Amrik Singh Bullowal, spokesperson and member of the trust.
Bullowal added that of the total 169 saroops, 107 were published by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and 79 of these were procured from SGPC between 1978 and 2012.
“As many as 30 saroops, which were printed by SGPC in 2014, were received by the trust in 2019. The Raja Sahib possesses 62 copies published by private Punjab and Delhi publishers and printers. These were printed before 1998, and all these saroops were donated by the NRIs and philanthropists for their religious upkeep,” he added. Pertinently, in 1998, the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of Sikhs, banned private printing of the sacred book and allowed only SGPC to print, maintain the required record, and circulate.
“Most of the saroops are from the pre-1998 era when private players also used to publish them. Of the 139 saroops, 79 were procured from 1978-2012, and 62 were in our custody before 1998. However, the case pertaining to missing saroops is between 2014 and 2019. We have provided all the records maintained by the trust to the SIT, but it was shocking that the probe team later came up with the fudged figures,” he alleged, adding that all the saroops are kept with utmost Sikh ‘maryada.’
The trust demanded that the state government must clarify that these 139 saroops in possession of Raja Sahib are before 2012, when it was not required to maintain records.
It also demanded that the Akal Takht must send a committee to visit its premises and carry detailed audit.
Bullowal further clarified that the 30 saroops, which have been traced back to SGPC, have been in its possession for a long time, and the gurdwara body was in the know of things.
“As many as 20 were procured from SGPC in the name of village Mazaara Nau Abad gurdwara on January 8, 2009. The gurdwara is managed by Raja Sahib. The 10 saroops in the name of Gurdwara Sahib Patshahi Nauvi of village Dosanjh Khurd of SBS district were given to us for safekeeping, and we have records to prove that too,” he said.
