FORMER SPECIAL CHIEF SECRETARY WARNS THE PANTH WILL MOVE THE SUPREME COURT IF NO ACTION COMES BY THE SHAHEEDI PANDHRWARA, AND APPEALS TO SRI AKAL TAKHT SAHIB FOR A HUKAMNAMA TO ALL SIKHS
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On the eleventh anniversary of the brutal and unprovoked police firing at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan, KBS Sidhu, former Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, said today that not a single charge has yet been framed against any accused in either case.
On 14 October 2015, police opened fire on Sikhs protesting peacefully against the desecration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The saroop had been stolen from the gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on 1 June 2015, and its torn Angs were found scattered at Bargari on 12 October. Gurjeet Singh of Sarawan and Krishan Bhagwan Singh of Niamiwala were killed at Behbal Kalan. Ajit Singh and many others were injured at Kotkapura.
“Eleven years, two commissions, half a dozen investigating teams, thousands of pages of challans, and not one accused has been asked to plead,” KBS Sidhu said. “When the State would rather a case were not tried, it does not scrap the process. It keeps it in a coma, with just enough movement to sustain the illusion that it may yet be revived.”
Both trials now sit at Chandigarh. Behbal Kalan was transferred in 2024, and Kotkapura followed by the High Court’s order of 9 April 2026. Yet on 1 August 2026, status reports on investigation still pending were filed before the Chandigarh court in sealed covers. An ordinary State prosecutor, whose own officers stand accused, still conducts both.
KBS Sidhu has today addressed a joint letter to Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah, Governor of Punjab and Administrator of UT Chandigarh Shri Gulab Chand Kataria, and Chief Minister Sardar Bhagwant Singh Mann. He seeks a standing coordination committee headed by the Union Home Secretary, with the Chief Secretaries of Punjab and UT Chandigarh, the Solicitor General of India and the Advocate General of Punjab as members. It would oversee the prosecution’s side, not the court’s. He has also renewed his April 2026 request that the Central Government appoint an independent Special Public Prosecutor for the two distinct but simultaneous trials. He noted that the Supreme Court did exactly this in the 2G spectrum and coal block allocation cases.
“Should no concrete action be forthcoming by the Shaheedi Pandhrwara of the Sahibzadas this December, irrespective of the election calendar or the Model Code of Conduct, the Panth and humble servants like myself will be compelled to move the Supreme Court of India,” KBS Sidhu said.
KBS Sidhu was in Amritsar on 13 October, where he paid obeisance at Sri Darbar Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib. He prayed for the departed souls of Gurjeet Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh, and for strength for the Panth and himself to pursue justice in this matter.
He also made a humble appeal to Sri Akal Takht Sahib, led by its Jathedar, to take up the matter as the supreme temporal seat of the Panth. He requested that it consider issuing a hukamnama to every Sikh, whether a public servant or otherwise, to do whatever lies within their lawful duty to facilitate and expedite the administration of justice in these cases. He further appealed to legal experts and practising lawyers in Punjab, Chandigarh and beyond to lend their knowledge and standing to the families.
KBS Sidhu expressed deep disappointment that no political party has made the trial a priority, though the issue is bound up with the Sikh psyche and the sanctity of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. “Successive governments came to office promising justice. They commissioned, investigated, announced and litigated. None of them produced a trial,” he said.
“The sacrilege and the firing are raised in every campaign and set aside after every result. The administration of criminal justice in a pending trial is not an electoral question, and it must not wait upon one.”
“Delay is not neutral. Delay is lethal: to evidence, to witnesses and to faith in justice,” he said. “A justice system that never begins a trial has delivered its judgment by default, in favour of whoever benefits from the silence.”
