Akal Takht directive fails to restrain Makkar

Defeating efforts by the Akal Takht to defuse tension, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Avtar Singh Makkar continues to spit venom at the fellow Sikhs who created a separate gurdwara body in Haryana.

Defeating efforts by the Akal Takht to defuse tension, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Avtar Singh Makkar continues to spit venom at the fellow Sikhs who created a separate gurdwara body in Haryana.

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A directive from Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh has barred hard-hitting statements on the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC) issue to open the way to an amicable solution. On Saturday, Makkar welcomed the Takht decision to call off the parallel Panthic conventions at Amritsar and Karnal but he was also back to calling members of the HSGMC and the Congress "traitors of the Panth".

During a media briefing here, he reminded the Congress that "the SGPC remains the sole representative body of Sikhs and we will resist all attempts to split it". Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal had made it clear that they would be Panth leaders in taking on the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government of Haryana, he added.

Makkar appealed to the Sikhs of Haryana to reject the HSGMC.