Walls near Chintpurni temple defaced with Khalistan slogans

Dharamsala, November 29

After Dharamsala, now miscreants have defaced walls of private buildings near Mata Chintpurni temple in Una district with ‘Khalistan zindabad’ slogans. The graffiti was created on shutters of closed shops and backside wall of a hotel.

Una SP Arjit Sen said the police have identified some miscreants who could have committed the crime. However, no arrests have been made yet, he said.

This was third such incident reported in the state. The Kangra police was still looking for the culprits who had written such slogans on walls of a government office in Dharamsala on October 4. A team of the state police had gone to Delhi recently to question two accused arrested on similar offence by the Delhi police from Gurgaon.

The US-based separatist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, has gone on record through videos on social media to claim credit for writing pro-Khalistan slogans on walls of the government office.

In an similar incident some miscreants, on intervening night of May 7 and 8 in 2022, had hanged banners displaying ‘Khalistan’ written in Gurmukhi language on the main gate of the Vidhan Sabha complex in the Tapowan area of Dharamsala. They had also created similar graffiti on walls of the Vidhan Sabha complex adjoining main gate.

The police had arrested Harbir Singh and Paramjit Singh, both residents of Morinda area of Ropar district of Punjab, in the case.

The state police had also booked Pannun, general counsel to the Sikhs for Justice, in the case registered for hanging pro-Khalistan banners on the main gate of the Vidhan Sabha complex. The police had registered case under Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Sections 153-A, 153-B of the IPC and Section 3 of the HP Open spaces (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act, 1985, against Pannun and other accused.