A Nihang order’s blue-robed sevadar allegedly attacked Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal with a kirpan at a Nanded gurdwara in Maharashtra on Thursday — the second attempt on his life in under two years, and one that reopened a decade-old rupture between the Badal family and sections of the Sikh Panth.
As Badal was walking through the foot-washing area, the man, pretending to be a devotee, launched an attack on him, aiming for his chest. The attack drew swift condemnation across the political spectrum, and from the Akal Takht and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). The slide has continued since. Aides described it as an informal meeting, but it revived talk of the two parties coming together again ahead of Punjab assembly election due early next year. Former Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, Badal, took the blow on his forearm and suffered injuries to his hand. He, the attacker, is Jaspal Singh Teja Singh Aidal, a lawyer from Pune. His wife works as a teacher at an English-medium school in Camp, while their daughter lives with her family in Pune’s Lullanagar.
Much of it goes back to the SAD-BJP government’s 2007-17 tenure in Punjab. Those controversies are widely credited with the SAD’s collapse in the 2017 Punjab election, where the party fell from ruling the government to 15 seats in the state’s 117 assembly seats. SAD won just three seats in 2022, and it currently has a single MLA and MP each. Badal met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on August 7 for a meeting that neither side has explained. SAD had quit the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the Centre in 2020 as Punjab and Haryana farmers agitated against the now-withdrawn agriculture laws.
Nanded police said Singh had repeatedly claimed he acted on “an order from waheguru”, though he first told officers he was angry over Punjab ’s drugs problem. Police said they had found no gang or criminal history linked to him so far. Jathedar Giani Kuldip Singh Gargaj said “a person who commits such an act cannot be a Sikh”, and SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami called the attack “a direct insult to the honour and sanctity of the Guru’s house”. AAP leader Baltej Pannu, condemning the attack too, noted that resentment over unresolved 2015 sacrilege cases remained “ alive in the minds of Sikhs even today ”. The tradition traces to Guru Gobind Singh, who is said to have dressed one of his sons in blue battle attire, fixing the colour as the order’s visual marker ever since. Critics have long accused the then SAD-BJP government of mishandling the response and failing to bring those responsible for the “sacrilege” to justice. Earlier reporting noted: According to the police sources, Singh lived alone in Nanded while his family remained in Pune. Earlier reporting noted: Singh had very limited contact with his family after moving to Nanded, sources said.
Earlier reporting noted: He concealed a kirpan, a small knife, in a large handkerchief and approached Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was exiting Gurudwara Mata Sahib in Nanded, Maharashtra.
