Saroop stolen, Burj Jawahar Singh Wala

Who: The sangat of Faridkot district and the Sikh organisations that took up the case, the Punjab Police, and the SAD-BJP government of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, in which Sukhbir Singh Badal held the home portfolio.

What: The crisis came in steps.

• 1 June 2015: a bir (saroop) of Sri Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from the gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village. The Tribune says Sikh groups held many dharnas in Faridkot over the next five months, demanding that it be recovered and the accused arrested.
• 24 and 25 September: posters insulting Sikh beliefs appeared in Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala.
• 12 October: more than 110 torn pages of the Guru Granth Sahib were found near the gurdwara at Bargari. Bargari shut down, protesters marched with the pages, and a dharna at Kotkapura blocked the main roads. Protesters said the pages came from the stolen bir.
• 14 October: police fired on protesters at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan. Two men were killed at Behbal Kalan, Gurjit Singh of Sarawan and Krishan Bhagwan Singh of Niamiwala.

Where: Burj Jawahar Singh Wala and Bargari, near Kotkapura in Faridkot district, Punjab.

Why it mattered: It opened the beadbi crisis, which was still being argued over ten years later. The government changed its police chief and handed the Bargari inquiry to the CBI. The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission, appointed by the Congress government after March 2017, recorded 162 cases of desecration and found that the Behbal Kalan firing was made without warning or the permission of the civil authorities. The SAD called its findings motivated. In December 2024 Sukhbir Badal admitted before the Akal Takht that his government had failed to catch those behind the 2015 sacrilege and that police had fired at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura. The former civil servant KBS Sidhu wrote in 2025 that no charges had been framed in either firing case ten years on.