Photo: Dudva / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Delhi Police have registered an FIR on a complaint from the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee alleging that protesters linked to the Aam Aadmi Party raised slogans and tried to use Gurdwara Bangla Sahib for political activity during Saturday’s demonstration against the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
Agency reports said the complaint named AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal along with party MLAs and workers. DSGMC president Harmeet Singh Kalka said the group had been offered langar and shelter, then took posters from their bags and began protesting inside the premises.
What the committee alleged
In its complaint, the DSGMC said no political party should turn the sacred Guru Ghar into a venue for protest or propaganda. Kalka told reporters the committee believed the protesters were associated with AAP and asked police to identify everyone visible in enclosed videos and take action under the law.
They came inside with just a bag and we let them in… We gave them langar and let them stay. After getting in, they started taking out posters from their bags and protested.
Harmeet Singh Kalka, DSGMC president
Bangla Sahib chairman Bhupinder Singh Bhullar said devotees may visit, eat and rest, and that medical help and lodging can be arranged, but protests inside the gurdwara will not be allowed, whatever the party.
Police entry video and rival claims
The row spilled into a separate dispute over a video that opposition leaders shared alleging Delhi Police entered the shrine with shoes on. Cockroach Janta Party co-convenor Saurav Das alleged officers entered with shoes and weapons to detain protesters who had taken shelter there after being shut out of Jantar Mantar.
Delhi Police said the clip showed staff in a common passage used by all devotees before the point where shoes are removed, called the video malicious, and said legal action was being initiated. A gurdwara staff member had earlier told reporters that police asked management to send protesters out and were told visitors inside were not criminals and could not be forced out without a serious crime.
Why it matters
Bangla Sahib sits about a kilometre from the Election Commission office on Ashoka Road. Over 100 demonstrators who had gathered outside the gurdwara on Saturday afternoon were detained as opposition groups pressed for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation. Turning a major Sikh shrine into a flashpoint risks communal and political fallout beyond the SIR protest itself.
The FIR moves the dispute from social media to a formal police case. Investigators will have to sift competing claims about who organised the indoor slogans, whether AAP leaders directed them, and whether any police conduct inside the complex broke religious practice. Further statements from AAP and updates on named accused were awaited.
