BRADFORD, UK—The Superintendent of Police in the West Yorkshire city of Bradford revealed in a community meeting that they had finally discovered the circumstances surrounding the beadbi (blasphemy) that took place exactly a week ago.
Sikh24 has learned that a young Catholic female was identified through ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras and then tracked to her address, where she revealed that she was indeed the person who had taken Guru Granth Sahib Ji to the Gurdwara Sahib.
The police explained that the culprit’s mother was once married to a Granthi (caretaker), who had passed away in 2010. The mother herself passed away a few years later and the Christian daughter was advised by a friend to return various Sikh artifacts to Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara Sahib. She had hired a vehicle to remove possessions during a house move that she is currently undertaking and after returning home from a late work shift, she visited the Gurdwara Sahib and tried to put the saroop through the railing bars, due to the gates being locked.
She couldn’t fit the saroop through the bars so she attempted to rest the saroop upon the gate which then subsequently fell over. She then left in the vehicle, as seen in the CCTV footage released by Sikh24 earlier this week.
The police revealed that the individual was extremely upset when she realised the widespread hurt that she had caused and wanted to take an opportunity to apologize. The local sangat is now arranging for select individuals to meet the female, in order to provide closure to both sides.
The police, however, was still heavily rapped by the sangat for appearing to be so complacent in the first half of the week. They readily admitted they had not understood the severity of the case and openly apologised. Ongoing liaison will continue to help police keep abreast of Sikh sentiments and practises.
The joint six Gurdwara committee of Bradford are to formalise a selection of young and old individuals who can effectively communicate with the female involved and feed back to the sangat.
Sikh24 has confirmed that WYPO will not be classifying this as a hate crime but as a hate incident, where no charges will be made.
The Sikh Council UK continues to communicate with the force to see the matter through.Given the current climate of intolerance, post Brexit, police are being asked to remain vigilant as threat of hate crime still remains high. But for now, this seemingly innocent event is being slowly put to rest.
[…] Note: The following statement was shared with Sikh24 by one of our readers after our expose of beadbi in Bradford. We are sharing this statement here for the benefit of our […]
It is very telling that you completely fail to comprehend that no matter who committed this sacrilege the deep anguish and pain that Sikhs feel over it worldwide is exactly the same which undermines your contention of feeling genuine solidarity with your Sikh cousins. Instead your focus is on having got the RSS off the hook! The point is that the RSS were only suspected in the first place because they have both motive and opportunity and ‘form’ having demonstrated terrorism and thuggish intimidation towards those of other faiths and indeed even towards those of their own supposed faith who aren’t Hinudvta enough – RSS poster boy and foremost ‘hero’ Nathuram Godse murdered Mahatma Gandhi and only recently we have seen the murder of Dalits for transporting cows by their zealot fanatics. When you couple that with their penetration of the SGPC and complete control of Akali Badal it is not unreasonable to immediately suspect their black hand. Those aren’t lies but factual truth – why is it that you wish to defend a terrorist militia which demands that those who wish to follow another religion be stopped and reeducated / re-indoctrinated through their Ghar Wapis brainwash programme and readily intimidates and attacks people of another religion?
The RSS need a reality check and do not represent logical people when they are fanatical.
‘When they are fanatical’? The RSS is by definition is a fanatical organisation. To be a right wing zealot organisation is their whole raison d’etre. They dress themselves up in the flag and claim they are standard bearers of Indian nationalism in exactly the same way the Nazis did and are equally as reprehensible and unpardonable. Do not associate yourself with such wretched creatures or make excuses for their ‘excesses’. The German masses did in the thirties and not all lived to rue turning a blind eye once the Nazis brought ignominy, ruin and partition to their nation.
Any sacrilege of Guruji causes pain to all that respect the teachings. Please do not jump to conclusions.
The RSS do not respect the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib. If they did they would abandon their ideological belief in the abomination of caste system and would respect the fact that anyone has the right to freely choose whatever religion they wish to subscribe to – instead they have a re-indoctrination programme called Ghar Wapsi and introduced panchayat laws where Dalits have to seek permission to convert.
Not RSS after all. What a shame!!!!????!!!!
Still could be a member of the RSS.
It is interesting that you take glee if not outright relief that the RSS were not responsible for this sacrilege and indeed defend them yet are quite happy to insinuate the culprits must have been Muslims (although you fail to have the courage to name them openly). Where is your apology to Muslims now? And don’t dare to presume that the Sikhs would hold hands with the fascist RSS whose agenda is as totalitarian as the fanatical Jihadi – we oppose both of you because you wish to discriminate and persecute as a matter of perverted purist ideology. The Sikhs stand with those who want humanity, equality and justice for all not just a select few.
There is no relief. Just irony.
Look at the number of your exclamation and question marks. That isn’t irony but delight.
Irony in my eyes. Always was always will be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wjkk Wjkf,
If you want to bring the “Siri Guru Granth Sahib” back to a Gurudwara, you look up in the internet or white yellow pages, normally you call for opening hours, or you drive directly as they did in a “rental car, late evening.”
When you see the gate is closed, usually you try it next day again, instead of trying to put “Guru Maharaj” through the fence gate, which was not possible, then she put him on the fence gate, (look at this fence), where the fall down and hurt to the floor was for very sure.
They can explain whatever they want. Many do not believe this version, me too. Few days before the Beadbi of “Guru Granth Sahib Maharaj” was happening in the US, before the RSS meeting in the UK took place. And the Sikhmissionary UK who works close with Christian churches together published for example a book “Guru Arjan Dev, Apostle of Peace”, there you can read sentences like: “Guru Arjan Dev in his CATHOLICSIM …” They all know very well what they are doing, but they do not know the impact of these Beadbis and hate crimes which will be written in their karma…. Chardikala. ?
The problem with our Panth is that we do not address root causes of any of our problems.
The two biggest internal problems that are stopping our Panth from being one and growing are:
1. Too many Gurdvarae – there need only be one or two per city. Imagine all the Sangat coming together, we wouldn’t be faced with the problem we are now where halls are empty during the week, the overheads of operating them are causing debt. Imagine the resources we could put in place if all those donations were put together and the impact we could have on our youth.
2. Saroops of our beloved Guru Maharaaj are too easily available, which means any TomDickHarry who wants to open a new Gurdvara because he has too much ego to work with his fellow bretheren, can go and buy a saroop and open a Gurdvara.
There needs to be a wolrdwide stop to printing saroops – until then:
– the next generation are less likely to do mehnat to memorise Gurbani by heart
– Sangat will not come together as there are too many factions caused by the simple access to purchase saroops and then go on to…..
– ……opening new Gurdvarae around the corner from where there are already 5 others
Sangat Ji, if we can’t overcome our differences and do seva/simran together operating from only one or two Gurdvarae per city, how will we ever come together to tackle all of the other problems?!
Who is monitoring all of this? Why is it being allowed? Why can’t we rise above our individual greed and ego and try to work with each other?
These are great points Sir. Very reasonable and thought provoking areas to discuss and act on.
I attended part if the meeting at Bradford Gurdwara yesterday. One of points that came to mind afterwards was why did the gurdwara committe not have a legal representative at the meeting to under legal issues. Rather just take polices explanations as gospel. Perhaps advise was taken and it happened during the week.
We do need to forgive the person carrying out this act.
But at the same time during the various interfaith and community events that happen in all parts of the UK. All gurdwaras in the UK need to take steps to advise everybody that if they come across anything to do with sikh scriptures and other artifacts to take to local gurdwara . GURDWARA committes to then how best to deal with these item.
The incident hurt the Sikh community as a whole. The vibe from the meeting appears to be that the true depth of the hurt has still not hit home. The chairman of the Temple gave the feeling that police were there as his personal guests and not in line with their duty and therefore continuously tried answer the questions himself which were intended for the police. The chairman should have stood shoulder-to-shoulder and inquired into the police failure to respond in a timely fashion. Instead he chose to sit with the police for photo oppertunity. He didn’t want the Sangat to know that there were failures on the part of the Temple committee too.
I believe that the matter has still not been bottomed out.
We need more from the background of the situation.
The mere act and it’s explaination is not enough.
We need people who understand the process in these matters and not just traditional thought of forgiveness. We all understand the compassion that is linchpin of Sikhism but we also need to assure the wider communities.
We need further meeting where the Temple chairman is not a mere apologist for the police. Police is there to deliver a service and the Sikhs must come up with a plan that will not permit a repeat of this type of incident.