SGPC condemns 'false narrative' on social media to tarnish image of Sikhs

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Harjinder Singh Dhami has strongly condemned the 'narrative' being propagated against Sikhs on social media, in response to a recent viral video. The SGPC is an organization for the management of gurdwaras in India.

The video in question showed a tourist with a temporary tattoo of the Indian national flag painted on her face being stopped by an SGPC employee from entering the Golden Temple, also known as the Harmandir Sahib.

The SGPC president said that "it is not right to make fabricated and baseless comments on social media to tarnish the image of Sikhs and defame the management of [an] organisation over an incident".

"Sachkhand Sri Harmandir Sahib is a universal place for people of all religions and the pilgrims who reach here are respected," he said.

“Sometimes people deliberately act against the Maryada, due to which the watchman and sewadars keep alerting the pilgrims”, he added.

“[I]t is sad that anti-Sikh forces are leaving no stone unturned to tarnish the image of Sikh institutions. Spreading false propaganda on any incident is an act of breaking the brotherhood, which should be avoided. In this recent incident, a girl was asked by the sewadar to follow the [Rehat] Maryada. Although the SGPC has also started an investigation into this matter, still some people are deliberately pushing it in the wrong direction,” he said.

The SGPC general secretary, Gurcharan Singh Grewal, added that the painting ''was not a national flag as it did not have [the] Ashok chakra on it''.

''The Sikh community has great respect for the national flag since the majority of the people who sacrificed their lives for the nation during the freedom struggle were Sikhs,'' he said.