The Hindu : Front Page : Sikh protests spread to Bangalore and Jammu

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Monday, Jun 23, 2008
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Sikh protests spread to Bangalore and Jammu

— Photo: A.M.Faruqui

ANGER SPREADS: Sikh protesters waving swords during a demonstration demanding the arrest of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Ram Rahim Singh, in Bhopal on Sunday.

Mumbai/Mysore: Police on Sunday shifted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh to an undisclosed destination for “security reasons” amid continued protests over the gunning down of a Sikh demonstrator in Mumbai. Radical groups demanded the Dera chief’s immediate arrest.

As protests by Sikh groups spread to Bangalore, Mysore and Jammu, besides several towns of Punjab and Haryana, SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar appealed to them to “maintain calm and not to allow themselves to be provoked.”

He said the protests should be within the “parameters of the law” and announced Rs. 5 lakh to dependents of Balkar Singh Thakur, 40, who was killed when Dera chief’s security guards allegedly opened fire on Sikh demonstrators near a mall in Mumbai suburb Mulund on Friday.

The head of the Sirsa-based sect was whisked away by the police to an undisclosed place on Sunday morning after he reached Mysore from Bangalore. He arrived in a bullet-proof car and headed straight to the sect’s Prathana Mandir at Siddalingapara on the city’s outskirts, but the police shifted him from there apprehending a threat to his life as his presence had triggered protests by local Sikh groups.

Members of the community blocked traffic on the Jammu-Pathankote National Highway and burnt the Dera chief in effigy in Sirsa, Moga and Sangrur, though the protests by and large remained peaceful, police reports said.

Radical groups Damdami Taksal and Sant Samaj demanded that the Dera chief be arrested by Tuesday.

They asked the Centre to withdraw the Z plus security cover provided to the Dera chief. — PTI

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