A Gurudwara in the Mango city in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand is said to have put up several posters extolling Khalistani terrorist Jarnail Singh Brar, popularly known as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, and denouncing the Indian Armed Forces.
One of the posters on display criticised the Indian Armed Forces and falsely accused it of Sikh genocide, referring to Operation Blue Star, which was the code name for the Indian military action carried out to remove Khalistan terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers from the Harminder Sahib complex in Amritsar in 1984 under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
The poster described the Indian Army as ‘Hindutva terrorists.’ It added that the Indian Army along with the Indian Navy and Air Force used chemical weapons and turned the Sikh’s holiest shrine into a killing ground.
Other posters put up at the same gurudwara glorified a number of Khalistani terrorists. General Shabeg Singh, Bhai Kehar Singh, Bhai Satwant Singh, Jagtar Singh Hawara, Balwant Singh Rajoana, Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Dilawar Singh Babbar, etc. are just a few of these names.
OpIndia inquired about these posters from the locals of Jamshedpur. A manager at a private bank who spoke on the condition of anonymity claimed he was astonished to see these posters. He stated, “I was stunned to see the poster while I was heading to my friend’s house for the shradh bhoj (prayer service) of his deceased maternal grandmother. I also discussed the same with one of my colleagues. The shocking thing is that up until this point, neither the media nor the administration has spoken out against such a seditious act.
We also spoke to Vishwa Hindu Parishad (Jharkhand unit) publicity chief Sanjay Kumar on this matter. In Jamshedpur, he claimed, there was opposition once these posters were put up. In spite of a complaint being made by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad district office-bearers in Jamshedpur, he claimed the Mango Gurdwara management refused to take down these posters.
Sanjay Kumar referred to the act as anti-national. The state government is aware of this issue, he said, but nothing has been done about it thus far. He claimed that despite the gurdwara being under its purview, the Mango police station in Jamshedpur never took any action in response to this despicable act.
When Sardar Bhagwan Singh, a member of the Mango Gurdwara, was contacted by OpIndia, he claimed not to know who was responsible. I’ll look into it, Bhagwan Singh said as he hung up the phone.
In a conversation with OpIndia, Sardar Shailendra Singh, the head of the Jharkhand Gurdwara Management Committee brazened it out by saying, “The picture of Bhinderwala, who is revered as a martyr by the Sikh community, is displayed. Sikhs do not consider him a terrorist but y’all he might be. His pictures are readily available in stores nowadays. His picture has been given a place among hundreds of Sikh martyrs. You send the picture to us if it involves insulting the army. We will take immediate action against those involved.
When we asked SHO Mango about this, he flat-out denied knowing about any such occurrence in the vicinity of his police station. The station’s in-charge, in turn, started requesting information from us regarding the location as well as other specifics.
