KARTARPUR, July 10 — The issue of “readmission” the Dhirmalia sect into the Sikh fold took a new turn with Mr Karamjit Singh, the head of the sect, maintaining that he had never sought his community’s readmission into the Panth, as it was already a part and parcel of the Sikh mainstream since the times of the ninth Guru, Guru Teg Bahadur.

Talking to The Tribune at his Kartarpur Fort here, Mr Karamjit Singh or Tikka Sahib, as he is called by his followers, said neither his family nor Dhirmalias had ever felt ostracised from the Sikh community.

Reacting to news reports in a section of press that the community had been ostracised for 350 years, Mr Karamjit Singh said none of the gurus had issued any edict in this regard and Dhirmalias in general and his family in particular had never been a target of the Sikh antipathy after the fifth guru’s time and particularly after the ninth guru had forgiven his ancestors and restored all property including the “Adi Granth”, the original copy of Guru Granth Sahib written by Bhai Gurdas under the supervision of Guru Arjan Dev, to the family. “So much so, that some Sikhs had approached Guru Gobind Singh with the plea that the Adi Granth should be taken back from our ancestors, but the guru did not respond, which means that he was not against our family,” said Mr Karamjit Singh. Karamjit Singh is a descendent of Dhirmal, the only brother of Guru Har Rai, the seventh guru, who had offered help to Painde Khan, a Mughal general, in his tirade against Guru Hargobind.

In a written statement, the copy of which was procured by The Tribune, Mr Karamjit Singh categorically stated that no verbal or written statement had been given to any person regarding readmission of Dhirmalias, “as they had been forgiven by the ninth Guru, Guru Teg Bahadur, who had restored all properties and the Adi Granth to our family. Hence, the chapter was closed during the guru’s lifetime. The family is a part of the Guru Arjan Dev’s lineage and has been living as true Sikhs since then.”

Mr Karamjit Singh, who is managing a number of religious institutes, including Kartarpur’s historical Gurdwara Thamb Sahib and other such places in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, said, “Practically, there has been no rift between Sikhs and Dhirmalias, only a historical appendix was there. Akal Takht was the creation of Guru Hargobind. From his time till Guru Gobind Singh’s time and from Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s era till date there has been no religious diktat against us. All religious places managed by us are visited by thousands of Dhirmalias and Sikhs alike, hence we don’t feel that we are in anyway different from Sikhs. And we consider Guru Granth Sahib as our guru,” he added.