‘Oppose from Akal Takht, threats from ‘own’ community forced them remain away from event’
“Those who had earlier given consent to re-enter Sikhism got feared that if they opted for the conversion through us, they would neither be considered Sikh nor would they remain Christians. So, they all back tracked,” Sukhpal Sran, State Secretary, VHP
Rajay Deep
Bathinda
Despite creating all hype, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders of Punjab failed to mobilise the Christian families to opt for the ‘ghar vaapsi’ (religious conversion) function scheduled to be held in Bathinda on Friday. Left with no option, they had to simply cancel the event.
A demoralised state secretary of the VHP Sukhpal Sran, who was heading the initiative, initially kept on urging the media persons to wait for his message related to the timing and venue for the event but finally in the evening with flat face Sran had to admit that the VHP could not mobilise the Christian families shortlisted for ‘ghar vaapsi’.
The media statement of Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh, who clarified that no one adopting Sikhism through such ‘ghar vaapsi’ programme of organistations would be considered as Sikh, worked as the major reason behind the failure of the event, as learnt.
“Those who had earlier given consent to re-enter Sikhism got feared that if they opted for the conversion through us, they would neither be considered Sikh nor would they remain Christians. So, they all back tracked,” explained Sran.
It has also been learnt that many among those shortlisted ones had received threat calls to get socially boycotted from all Christians even their close relatives.
Sran also claimed that there was acute pressure on the VHP as well as the persons once willing for conversion that finally led to the cancellation of the move, at least for now.
He, however, made yet another claim: “We, after discussing all the matter with our national leaders, have now decided to chalk out a thorough strategy to organise the same event on January 13, a festival of Makar Sakaranti.”
“The VHP would take the success of the event on January 13 as a challenge and whatever the hurdle comes on the way we would cross it without bothering the consequences,” he added.
The state wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) was earlier scheduled to hold the controversial “ghar vaapsi” (religious conversion) function in Bathinda for Thursday but exposed to different challenges including pressure from different quarters, they had to defer the event for Friday but with no change in circumstances the event was finally cancelled on Friday.
The VHP activists had otherwise planned to perform some rituals pertaining to “shuddhikaran” (purification) of 100 Christian families of Bathinda to ‘bring them back’ to Sikhsim and Hindiusim.
Speaking over phone, State Secretary of VHP Sukhpal Singh Sran said, “Many Hindus were converted to Christianity in the past but now we were scheduled to bring them back to their original religion Hindusim, with no difference between Hindus and Sikhs.”
“For those who were to return to Sikhism, I had to perform Japuji Sahib’s path and for those 20 families going back to Hindusim were to participate in the Yajna performed by a priest,” divulged Sran.
Speaking further, he said, “Once performing the rituals on Friday, we had planned to take all 80 families returning to Sikhism to Takht Damdama Sahib, Talwandi Sabo, where they would get baptised,” he added.
While reveling the identity of few who as per him had once given consent to join Hindusim, Sukhpal mentioned that three were the pastors having actively made a number of people adopt Christianity for over two decades.
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