Even as Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Amarinder Singh has dismissed deletion of chapters about Sikh Gurus from the Class XII history book of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), the Aam Aadmi Party  (AAP) on Sunday  demanded a high-level probe and action against officials guilty of allegedly deleting chapters related to Sikh Gurus.

In a joint press statement, seven AAP legislators including Kultar Singh Sandhwan, Saravjit Kaur Manuke, Pirmal Singh Khalsa, Jagdev Singh Kamalu, Jai Kishan Singh Rodi, Kulwant Singh Pandori and Amarjit Singh Sandoa said Amarinder Singh-led Congress government has deleted 23 chapters related to Sikh Gurus and important events of Sikh history from the Class 12 history book of the PSEB.

AAP termed the move as disrespect to the Sikh Gurus and asked the government to correct its heinous mistake without any delay.

The AAP legislators sad the move of PSEB to remove the chapters related to the history of Sikh gurus and their teachings, Anglo-Sikh wars, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Sikh struggle against Mughals and Ahmad Shah Abdali and the origin and growth of Sikh Misls etc will isolate the youth of Punjab from glorious past of Sikhism in particular and Punjabis as a whole.

“The government’s plea on the issue that certain chapters from the last year’s syllabus have been deleted to bring the syllabus on par with the NCERT is mere excuse and it cannot be accepted,” they said.

However, the claim of government that these chapters will be taught in class 11 does not carry any weight as many schools teach half of the Class 12 syllabus in Class 11 only.

“We demand a high-level probe and action against officials guilty of deleting chapters related to Sikh Gurus and glorious past of Sikhism. The government  must mark a time-bound inquiry in this regard,” said AAP MLAs.

In a statement, the CM had on Saturday accused opposition parties of trying to spread misinformation on a sensitive religious issue.

“The fact was that the courses had merely been realigned with the NCERT syllabus to enable the students from Punjab to compete at the national level,” said Amarinder, making it clear that not a single chapter, nor a word, had been deleted by the board.

The history chapters had been now spread across Classes 11 and 12, on the recommendation of an expert committee, of which an SGPC representative was also a member, he added.