2-room structure found during excavation at Golden Temple complex

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 16

The SGPC has approached heritage experts and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to ascertain the antiquity of a two-room structure found 12-ft beneath during excavation at the Golden Temple complex.

Addressing mediapersons here today, Bibi Jagir Kaur, SGPC president, said the committee had approached the ASI through the office of the Deputy Commissioner. “In case its antiquity and association with the Sikh history is proved, it will be preserved,” she said.

The Sikh Sadbhawna Dal, an organisation floated by Baldev Singh Wadala, a dismissed Hazoori Raagi of the Golden Temple, alleged there were attempts to destroy the Sikh heritage and carrying out of “unscientific” ‘kar sewa’ by volunteers inside the Golden Temple complex.

He claimed when activists of the Sikh Sadbhawna Dal reached the excavation site yesterday, Kar Sewa volunteers were engaged in digging a deep pit without taking care of the heritage structure beneath. This led to an altercation between the two groups and the activists of the Dal went live on social media to highlight the issue. They claimed that a tunnel and a heritage structure were lying beneath the site. They alleged the volunteers of Kar Sewa were working at the behest of the government to erase the symbols of the 1984 Operation Blue Star and other Sikh heritage.

Maharaja connect?

A spatial conservation planner and former head of GNDU’s Sri Guru Ram Das School of Planning says the site used to be known as Bunga Gianiya, where Giani Sant Singh, a prominent person in the court of legendary Sikh King Maharaja Ranjit Singh, resided.

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