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Sikhs sack Bhai Ranjit Singh as jathedar

The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee Wednesday sacked Bhai Ranjit Singh and appointed Giani Puran Singh as the full-fledged jathedar of the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs.

The decision was taken unanimously by the SGPC executive at a meeting in Chandigarh.

SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur, who presided over the meeting, appealed to the Sikh masses to lend their full support to the new jathedar.

Briefing newspersons after the meeting, Bibi Jagir Kaur said Bhai Ranjit Singh did not reply to the show cause notice served on him. She said by not replying to the charges contained in it, he had had ''admitted'' all the allegations levelled against him.

The SGPC chief said an inquiry committee set up to look into the charges against Giani Kewal Singh and Professor Manjit Singh had not yet completed its probe in view of their being busy with the tri-centenary celebrations of the Khalsa.

She said the committee had been asked to submit its report at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the SGPC executive took strong exception to the setting up of a parallel SGPC by the Pakistan government to administer the Sikh shrines in that country.

She alleged that this was in contravention of the 1925 Gurdwara Act, which envisaged only one committee to manage the affairs of the Sikh shrines in the sub-continent.

"We do not accept any parallel SGPC in Pakistan,'' she declared

The SGPC, she said, would ask the Union and Punjab governments to take up this issue with the Pakistan government through diplomatic channels.

She said as a mark of protest, the SGPC executive has decided not to send any jatha to Pakistan in June.

''Unless our jathas are given due honour and respect we will not send any to Pakistan," she said.

The executive refused permission to a Gujarati institution to install a statue of Guru Nanak Dev in the Rann of Kutch since it was against the Sikh maryada (principles).

UNI

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