Shimla: Over 150 Nihangs have set up camp at the Paonta Sahib gurdwara in Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh, and have vowed not to leave until four of their members, detained in Uttarakhand following a clash with locals, are freed, PTI reported.
Sources said the group held meetings to plan next steps and resolved not to return to Punjab until the arrested Nihangs are released. The standoff follows an attempt by a Nihang jatha to enter Uttarakhand through Dehradun on Thursday, which led to confrontations with police deployed in large numbers to block their passage.
The standoff along the Himachal-Uttarakhand border eased on Friday after the Nihangs agreed to postpone their march into Uttarakhand for two days. Jagdeep Singh Akali, who is leading the jatha, told the media on Friday that th
e Uttarakhand administration had sought two days to “fulfil their demands”, and that their plan for a protest march has been suspended for the next 48 hours. He added that they would resume their agitation if the detained members were not released.
The arrests stem from an incident on June 16 in Karnaprayag market in Chamoli district, where a confrontation between residents and a group of Nihangs escalated into violence, leaving several locals and one Nihang injured. Police registered a case and detained four Nihangs in connection with the clash.
Thursday evening saw the Nihang jatha clash with police and force its way past barricades as it attempted to proceed toward Hemkund Sahib, a key Sikh pilgrimage site in Uttarakhand.
After talks with officers, the group gathered in Dehradun was turned back and later sheltered at Paonta Sahib gurdwara, just a short distance from the interstate boundary.
Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Pramendra Dobal said a small number of people and “one or two vehicles” had breached the checkpoint but retreated following negotiations.
In a related incident on June 20, roughly six Nihangs scaled the roof of Nagarasu Gurdwara on the Badrinath Highway and detained an elderly man, demanding the release of those held after the Karnaprayag clash. The gurdwara was vacated on June 23 after talks between the local administration, gurdwara authorities and Nihang visitors from Punjab.