By Ubair Ul Hameed
Srinagar : A prominent Sikh leader said that there are no forced conversions in Jammu and Kashmir. Jagmohan Singh Raina, chairman of the All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC), made these remarks while addressing the media on Wednesday.
The Sikh leader also blamed leaders from Delhi for making ”offensive remarks” which would create discord among communities in Kashmir.
“The Sikh community in Jammu & Kashmir has been living in harmony with the majority Muslim community. Over the years many attempts were made to create a wedge between the two communities by the vested interests. However, the nefarious designs got defeated due to the strong bond that exists between the two communities,” the Sikh leader said during a press conference .
Raina appealed for calm and said,” The people need to remain vigilant and ensure that the congenial atmosphere does not get vitiated. Since both the communities have supported each other through thick and thin it is the responsibility of members of both communities to continue with the synergy,”
The Sikh leader also blamed Delhi-based Sikh politician Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who also heads Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) for communalizing the issue.
“They want to play Punjab and Delhi politics on the shoulders of Kashmiri Sikhs,” he stated, adding, “We will not allow this to happen,” he asserted.
The Sikh leader, in the press conference, said that over the years members of elite political families of Jammu & Kashmir have been indulged in inter-caste marriage but surprisingly nobody pointed fingers towards them. “Whenever such an incident happens in a normal family the issue gets blown out of proportion,” he said
Paramjeet Singh Sarna, the former head of the Delhi Gurdwara Committee and the president of the Shiromani Akali Dal, also repudiated those who arrived in Srinagar from Delhi to “instigate the violence.”
Meanwhile, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Ulema (MMU), an amalgam of religious bodies and clerics, on Tuesday refuted the claims that the Sikh girls were forcibly converted to Islam for marriage.
“On the advice of jailed Mirwaiz, senior leader Agha Syed Hassan Al-Moswi Al-Safwi met with members of the local Sikh community as well as representatives of the Shiromani Akali Dal to learn about the situation at hand that had created grief within the local Sikh community and to resolve it amicably. Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, and concord, and that pressure or force has no place in Islam,” the MMU spokesperson said.
MMU alleged that some external elements were deliberately trying to create a rift among communities living here.
The statement comes after a Sikh woman was married to a Sikh man after a controversy. Various media outlets reported that the girl was married to a Muslim man, she was snatched and forcibly remarried to a Sikh man. Some reports had also said that the girl did not want to return to the Sikh faith.