Channi rebukes sacrilege attempt at Patiala Mandir; 'trying to destabilise social harmony'

Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Monday issued his first response on the attempted sacrilege at the Sri Kali Mata Mandir in Patiala saying that vested interests were attempting to disturb the social harmony of the state.

Taking to Twitter, Charanjit Channi revealed that a person had climbed onto the threshold of the sanctum sanctorum of the temple at around 2.30 PM today, after which he was caught and handed over to the police. Sending a warning, Charanjit Channi asserted that he would not let vested interests destabilise the social harmony of Punjab ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.

Recent sacrilege attempts in Punjab

Punjab has been witnessing an increasing number of attempted sacrileges across religious sites in the run-up to the elections. On December 18, an unidentified youth attempted sacrilege in the sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple. Caught on CCTV, the man was seen grabbing the golden sword (kirpan) and trying to attack the holy book before being stopped by SGPC officers. He was later dragged out of the shrine and allegedly lynched to death by enraged devotees.

A day after the Golden Temple incident, rumours of a sacrilege attempt at the Kapurthala Gurudwara led to mob lynching of a man. It was found that the man beaten to death was actually a thief and officers concluded that there was no sacrilege involved. Punjab

DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya had lamented the incident saying, "It seems that the person went inside with the intention of theft. This was a very sad and painful incident that cannot be tolerated. And this is something that I would like to say- don't take the law into your hands."

Punjab Elections 2022 

In the 2017 Punjab Assembly election, Congress won a whopping 77 seats in the 117-member House, whereas  AAP emerged as the second-largest party with 20 seats and failed to bear fruit as it could win in only 54 constituencies. This year, Republic P-MARQ Poll has predicted a neck-to-neck fight between AAP and Congress with the former bagging 50-56 (37.8 %) of the total 117 seats. Congress is projected to be a close second with 42-48 seats (35%), SAD with 13 to 17 seats (15.8%), BJP 1-3 with seats (5.7%) and others with 1-3 seats (5.6%). Punjab will go to polls on February 20 and counting of votes shall take place on March 10.