The Youth Akali Dal (YAD) on Sunday held district level protest rallies across the state against Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta for making offensive remarks against the Sikhs by painting them as "terrorists".
The YAD workers took out processions through the markets of Muktsar, Amritsar Sahib, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Faridkot, and other districts while raising slogans against DGP and Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi and also burnt their effigies.
Speaking to media, youth leaders Gurpartap Singh Tikka and Talbir Singh Gill said that the DGP should be immediately dismissed from the top post for propagating falsehood against a peace-loving community which always stood for the protection of the underprivileged sections of the society.
"By calling the Kartarpur Sahib visiting Sikh pilgrimages as people who can be easily lured to terrorism, Punjab DGP has proved that he was deliberately attempting to malign the image of the Sikhs, for which he seemed to have received direct orders from 10 Janpath in New Delhi," they said.
The YAD demanded a public apology from Gupta for hurting religious sentiments of the Sikhs worldwide.
The protestors said that the DGP had committed an act of sacrilege by labelling all Sikh devotees as potential terrorists who had visited the holy place of Shri Kartarpur Sahib. "Gupta must explain that how many out of 50,000 devotees visiting the sacred place had become terrorists?" they said.
Earlier, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia had condemned the DGP's reported remark where he had said that 'Kartarpur has the potential...you send someone in the morning and by evening he is a trained terrorist.'
"This is highly unacceptable. The DGP is furthering Indira Gandhi's ideology, which painted every Sikh as a terrorist. It is a deep-rooted conspiracy," said Majithia during a press conference here.
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