Punjab calm, para military forces conduct flag marches

After being on the boil for about a week over sacrilege incidents and police firing, Punjab was peaceful on Thursday even though some places witnessed tension and para military forces conducted flag marches in various parts of the state.

Sikh organisations, not satisfied with government measures, announced setting up of a ‘Peoples Commission’ to probe sacrilege incidents, police firing in Faridkot’s Behbal Kalan village, where two people were killed and alleged police excesses on Sikhs in the state.

Rapid Action Force (RAF), along with police, carried out flag marches in various parts of Phagwara where tension was witnessed when groups of Sikhs and Hindus came face to face, brandishing swords and sticks, police said. A possible clash was, however, averted by the timely intervention of police.

Hindu hardliners were objecting to blocking of traffic on Dussehra by Sikh radicals, who were staging a dharna on NH-1 at Hardobingnagar crossing, police said.

A group of Sikh hardliners had blocked traffic to protest incidents of desecration of their holy book Guru Granth Sahib, police said. In signs of normalcy returning to the state, Sikh protesters today limited their sit-ins to internal roads across the state as a result of which most of the national highways witnessed normal traffic movements.

Ten companies of paramilitary forces and Punjab police personnel kept a tight vigil in the wake of protests by sikh organisations.