DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

Punjab Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan on Saturday formed a 15-member select committee of the House for wider consultations with stakeholders on an anti-sacrilege bill. The move came days after the Punjab Assembly unanimously decided to refer the Punjab Prevention of Offences Against Holy Scripture(s) Bill, 2025, proposing punishment up to life imprisonment for sacrilege acts against religious scriptures, to a select committee of the House.

The panel will submit its report on the bill within six months.

The 15-member panel will be headed by AAP MLA from Amritsar South and former minister Inderbir Singh Nijjar, according to a notification issued by the Punjab Vidhan Sabha secretariat on Saturday.

The members of the committee are -- AAP MLAs Ajay Gupta, Amandeep Kaur Arora, Inderjit Kaur Mann, Jagdeep Kamboj, Neena Mittal, Baljinder Kaur, Budh Ram, Bram Shanker Jimpa, Madan Lal Bagga, and Mohammad Jamil Ur Rahman; BJP MLA Jangi Lal Mahajan, Congress legislators Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal; and Shiromani Akali Dal legislator Manpreet Singh Ayali.

Punjab Advocate General Maninderjit Singh Bedi will be the ex-officio member of the committee.

The anti-sacrilege bill was introduced on July 14 in the House.

The bill mandates strict punishment, extending up to life imprisonment, for the desecration of holy scriptures, including the Guru Granth Sahib, Bhagavad Gita, Bible and Quran.

According to the bill, any person found guilty of sacrilege may face imprisonment ranging from 10 years to life. The guilty shall also be liable to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh, which may extend up to Rs 10 lakh.

Those attempting to commit the offence may be sentenced to three to five years and shall also be liable to pay a fine which may extend up to Rs 3 lakh. Individuals found abetting the crime will be punished in accordance with the offence committed.

Under the Bill, offence means any sacrilege, damage, destruction, defacing, disfiguring, de-colouring, de-filling, decomposing, burning, breaking or tearing of any holy scripture or part thereof.

Sacrilege has been an emotive issue in Punjab. There has been a demand from various quarters for stringent punishment for sacrilege after the incidents of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in 2015 in Faridkot.

In the police firing at anti-sacrilege protesters in October 2015, two persons were killed in Behbal Kalan, while some persons were injured at Kotkapura

in Faridkot.

(editor@dailyworld.in)