By IANS
Chandigarh : Punjab Police Monday prevented thousands of Sikhs from proceeding into the city in a protest march against Dera Sacha Sauda chief, Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh.
The police stopped the marchers at Mohali town, 10 km from here, after they started from Gurudwara Amb Sahib. The marchers were planning to hold a demonstration outside the official residences of the chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana.
The protestors then gathered at a nearby ground for a rally.
There were many policemen present to prevent the protestors from reaching Chandigarh.
The Chandigarh police put up barricades and stationed riot police at the city's border crossover points with Punjab. Security barricades were also put up outside the homes of both chief ministers and on the road leading to the governor's houses.
The march call was given by the Khalsa Action Committee, a joint group of various religious and radical Sikh organisations like Dal Khalsa and Damdami Taksal.
The protestors had planned to hold rallies outside the residences of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Haryana counterpart Bhupinder Singh Hooda to demand the arrest of the Dera chief and action against him.
The Dera chief earned the ire of the Sikh community after he portrayed himself as the 10th Sikh guru, Gobind Singh, in May. The Sikh clergy and leaders have been demanding his arrest since then for hurting religious sentiments.
The sect godman lives near Sirsa town in neighbouring Haryana, 300 km from here.
He got interim bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court after a Bathinda court in Punjab issued an arrest warrant against him for allegedly hurting Sikh religious sentiments.
In Amritsar, The Akal Takht, highest temporal seat of Sikhs, and the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), mini-parliament for Sikh affairs, indicated that a full apology from the sect chief could be considered to defuse the situation.
The dera chief had earlier sent two apparently reluctant apologies, which were rejected by the Akal Takht.
Akal Takht chief, Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti, said Sunday that a rally called by Sikhs at Ratia town in Fatehabad district of Haryana, 15 km from the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters in Sirsa, would be held as scheduled July 11.
The chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana met along with senior civil and police officials to discuss the holding of the Sikh rally in Haryana. Hooda urged Badal to impress upon Sikh religious leaders not to hold the rally in Haryana as it could lead to tension between the Sikh community and dera followers.
Punjab had witnessed large-scale violence in May after the controversy erupted. The Haryana government does not want the Punjab-centric problem to spill over to the next state and lead to violence.