Thread by @NavroopSingh_

Punjab Assembly under Amarinder Singh passed an amendment to Section 295AA OF IPC on Blasphemy: it criminalises “injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Srimad Bhagwad Geeta, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people”

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1472841435397300225

It replaces an earlier 2016 legislation that provided for similar penal provisions for the desecration of the Sikh holy book.

That bill, introduced by the then Akali Dal-BJP government, was rejected by the Centre in April last year, on the premise that "all religions are to be treated equally".

The incidents started with Bargari village in Faridkot district where several torn pages of the scripture were found scattered on October 12, 2015.

Outraged Sikhs, who make up close to 60 per cent of Punjab's population and revere the Guru Granth Sahib as a living guru,

came out on the streets to protest. Init­ially peaceful, the protests turned int­ensely violent after October 14, when police killed two protesters in Faridkot's Behbal Kalan village.

Unnerved, then CM Parkash Singh Badal was forced to replace his DGP and hand the Bargari inv­estigation to the CBI. All this began in 2015

There has since been ample evidence to show that the Sikh community's growing anger over Bargari and other incidents of desecration was, and continues to be, fuelled by Pakistan's ISI and extremist elements in the diaspora.S

SAD-BJP Government passed a law in 2016 criminalizing Sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib. Governor returned the law saying all religions must be equal. Congress came in power in 2017 & in 2018 it passed a law naming all holy books of various religions under Blasphemy law.

There are apparently hundreds of such cases in Punjab. When SAD-BJP Government gave sacrilege cases to CBI they failed to find perpetrators and Punjab & Haryana HC intervened and ordered CBI to give cases back to Punjab police. Amarminder singh promised action not delivered on it

Just giving the backdrop of TL of events in Punjab factually. The punishment prescribed under new law is life imprisonment. Just stating the events not an opinion on lynching which is totally horrendous to say the least.