The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Thursday threatened to launch a movement of the Sikh community over deletion of chapters about Sikh Gurus from the Class XII history book of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB).

In a Press statement, the SAD said it was issuing final ultimatum to the Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Amarinder Singh to immediately issue orders to stop “the conspiracy to eliminate the proud and unparalleled history and heritage of the Khalsa Panth or face a worldwide popular resistance movement by the Sikh quom (community)”.

A high-level delegation of the SAD and the Bharatiya Janata Party will call on the Punjab Governor tomorrow at 11.00 a.m. to request him to personally intervene in the matter and ensure that the teaching of history to school students of Classes XI and XII continued in the same exhaustive pattern as before.

Giving details of the proceedings of the Akali Dal’s core committee meeting held on Thursday, party spokesperson Harcharan Bains said that the party president Sukhbir Singh Badal has convened an emergency meeting of party’s various wings at Amritsar on 11 May.

Former CM Parkash Singh Badal specially came over to take part in the meeting.

Bains said that the committee expressed grave concern over the attempts by the Punjab government to play havouc with Sikh history. He said that the committee was firmly of the view that the matter was far too vital for the future of the Sikh quom to be treated merely as an issue of political difference of perception.

“This is a fight for the preservation of the proud Sikh history and heritage for the coming generations as it affects the future of our quom. The entire country and indeed the whole mankind looks at Sikh history as a source of immense moral, psychological and spiritual inspiration for the present and the future generations. The SAD will make every sacrifice needed in order to protect history and legacy of the Sikh quom,” said a resolution passed an emergency meeting of the Core Committee.

Later speaking to reporters, the party president Sukhbir said the CM Amarinder does not realise the enormity of the damage being done to Sikh history by the decision of the government to delete it from the prestigious Board class of XII in PSEB.