Can’t meddle in gurdwara affairs: Oz envoy

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 17

Replying to a query on some gurdwaras in Australia restricting the entry of Indian government officials, Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu said the (Australian) government could not intervene as it was the prerogative of the gurdwara management.

Talking to mediapersons during her visit to the Golden Temple today, Harinder said that there was only one gurdwara in her country which did so.

Responding to another query about racial attacks on Punjabis in her country, she said such incidents were reported some 10 years ago and the Australian Government swiftly swung into action. Thereafter, no incident was reported, she claimed.

She said the people of Punjabi origin and Punjabi language were growing at a fast pace in Australia. “My government wants to work in close cooperation with Punjab in agriculture and dairy farming,” she said.

She said she would work to consolidate bilateral relations between Australia and India in different spheres.

On her visit to the Golden Temple, she remarked: “I feel honoured and deeply pleased over my first official visit to the holiest Sikh shrine. Since I was raised in a Sikh family, I am familiar with its tenets and importance of the shrine.”

SGPC officials, led by its chief secretary Dr Roop Singh, felicitated the Australian High Commissioner with a siropa, a model of the Golden Temple and a set of religious books.

On her four-day visit to the state, she would visit the Partition museum here tomorrow. She is also scheduled to visit Punjab Agriculture University in Ludhiana.