Shiromani Akali Dal president Sardar Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday accused the supporters of radical religious leader Amritpal Singh, who had laid a siege on the Police Station at Ajnala in Amritsar yesterday, of committing sacrilege by using the holy Guru Granth Sahib as a shield for their selfish motives and taking the sacred scripture to a mere a police station.

Addressing a press conference, the SAD chief said yesterday’s carnage at Ajnala was “unforgivable”. “This is shocking, unbelievable and unforgivable. Never in Sikh history has anyone ever shown such brazen disrespect to the holy Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji as was done at Ajnala yesterday,” said Badal.

He said peaceful protests and processions were a democratic right of the people and his party fully supports it. “But the way it is becoming a fashion among some to use our sacred Guru at dharnas, protests or processions to promote their own interests is unforgivable,” the  Akali president said.

He suspected a conspiracy at work to render the peaceful democratic voice of Punjabis irrelevant by actively sponsoring and promoting disruptive and lawless elements. “Otherwise how do you explain yesterday’s complete administrative  paralysis and why there was no attempt by the government to ensure that its writ runs in the state. We have no government worth the name in Punjab,” Badal said.

Badal also accused the BJP government at the Centre and the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab of vitiating the atmosphere in the state and ruining the hard earned atmosphere of peace and communal harmony in the state.

“They are out to communally polarise the state,” said Badal after presiding over a meeting of the core committee of his party.

Badal said the Parkash Singh Badal-led government gave total peace, communal harmony and massive all round development to the state for full fifteen years, adding that no state can progress without peace and stability and communal harmony   “But the achievements of those fifteen years have all been laid waste by two successive govts of Congress and AAP,” he added.

The SAD leader said “complete anarchy and a fear psychosis currently prevails  in the state with murders and gangsterism being the order of the day. “This truly is the era of reign of terror actively sponsored by the powers that be in Delhi and Punjab,” he added. Badal, however, said as the representative of Panth and Punjab, the SAD will continue to safeguard unity of Punjabis, and  peace and communal harmony even if we have to make supreme sacrifices for that.