Bathinda Clash
Miscreants belonging to the "Sacha" Sauda cult virtually took over the government mini-secretariat in Bathinda for an entire day. Their volunteers assembled around the complex armed with fighting staffs and other weapons. Several trucks loaded with bricks and rocks were brought in for offensive use against the protesting Sikh Sangat.
This is not 1984, this was the scene in Punjab three days ago.
By 10:00am the cultists had assembled a large tent along with a stage on the main road facing the secretariat. One after another, pro-cult speakers began to deliver hateful remarks against the protesting Sikh Sangat. One speaker openly challenged the Sikh community and declared “we have drunk the jam-e-insaa from our satguru, so go ahead and mess with us, and we will prove that our guru is greater than your guru.”
This was a direct challenge to the Sikhs that their cult leader was greater than Guru Nanak-Guru Gobind Singh Sahib Ji. The speaker further spewed, “our leader will ride a horse, and wear any dress he wishes to wear. If anyone has the guts, try to stop him! If anyone speaks against our satguru, we are willing to die, even if we will create rivers of blood by this action.”
Another speaker directly mocked the Sikhs by stating “soon we will make sure that it will be 12:00 clock for the Sikhs.” Another one stated “To counter the Sikh we don’t need ‘premis’ (the name used by cultists to refer to their selves), our ‘premanns’ (women cultists) are enough to handle them directly.
Speaker after speaker continued to mock and spew hatred against the Sikh community, the police stood by silently as the hate speeches continued for several hours. It was widely reported in the press that when hooligan cultist attacked Sikhs protestors, and set fire to vehicles, the police again stood by and watched all this silently.
The connection between the police and the cultist became clear when the Bathinda Police Inspector General (IG) declared via a loud speaker that no will be allowed to burn effigies of their leader anywhere in Punjab.
Sikhs injured in the Bathinda Clash
Clashes in Patiala and other towns
Clashes between the Sirsa based cultists, Sikhs and the Police broke out all over Punjab as Sikh protestors burned effigies of Ram Rahim and vented their anger in the streets and markets of major Punjabi towns, including Patiala, Amritsar Sahib, Jallandhar, Hoshairpur, Gurdaspur, and Ludhiana. Protests have spread to areas outside of Punjab with a sizable Sikh population, including, Delhi, Indore, Jammu, Hyderabad, Ganganagar, and the states of UP, and Uttrakhand.
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