Punjab: Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann today introduced the Prevention of Offences against Holy Scriptures Bill, 2025 in the Punjab Assembly. The bill comes exactly a decade after the incidents of sacrilege at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala and Bargari in Faridkot district. The new bill is the third bill after the 2015 sacrilege and police firing on protesters at Behbal Kalan.
Why the new bill?
In 2018, the Assembly had passed the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, which added Section 295 AA, providing for life imprisonment for those who sacrilege, damage or injure the Guru Granth Sahib, Bhagavad Gita, Quran and Bible with intent to outrage religious sentiments. The imprisonment period for damaging or desecrating a place of worship was increased from two years to 10 years. The bill was then sent to the Centre. Since the Indian Penal Code has now replaced the Indian Penal Code, the bill was sent back to the state government for redrafting. After the 2018 bill was returned, some social activists had started protests demanding a law with stringent punishments.
Earlier draft laws
During the SAD-BJP tenure, when the government was struggling to recover from the political turmoil following the 2015 sacrilege incidents, the assembly passed the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill and the Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill. These dealt only with the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib. These were returned with the objection that it should provide for punishment for sacrilege against all religions.
Incidents after 2015
According to the state intelligence department, more than 100 incidents of sacrilege have been reported in the last five years alone. Earlier, in 2016, there were reports of Quran desecration in Malerkotla and later in Sangrur; in 2018, torn pages of the Guru Granth Sahib were found in a park in Amritsar, following which there were protests; and a gurdwara in Tarn Taran was vandalised and the Guru Granth Sahib was desecrated. In 2021, a GREF personnel was killed after a gurdwara management committee chief in Gurdaspur was accused of desecration. In October the same year, a man was killed by Nihangs at the Singhu border for allegedly desecrating religious texts, and in December, an unidentified man was beaten to death for entering the sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple. Also in 2021, a man was killed for allegedly desecrating the Nishan Sahib at a gurdwara in Kapurthala. After the AAP came to power, incidents of sacrilege were reported in Morinda (April 2023) and Golewala in Faridkot. There were firing incidents at Gurdwara Dukhniwaran Sahib in Patiala (May 2023); a man was killed on suspicion of sacrilege at Gurdwara Chaura Khuh in Phagwara (2024); a man was beaten to death at a gurdwara in Bandala village in Ferozepur for allegedly sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib (May 2024); and a man was booked in Ferozepur for allegedly throwing Sikh religious texts on the road after converting to Christianity (December 2024).
