Terror Warnings at the Golden Temple Must Not Be Ignored

Sabotage Here Could Destroy Punjab — Don’t Sleepwalk into Another Storm

A  PIECE OF news that cannot be ignored — and must be taken very seriously: the Golden Temple — Sachkhand Sri Harmandir Sahib — has received bomb threats for three consecutive days. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has now received five intimidating emails, sent from fake IDs, claiming plans to blow up Sikhism’s holiest shrine.

This is not a false alarm to be brushed aside. This is a warning Punjab must heed with the full weight of its history, geography, and the psychological fragility of the present.

Punjab is no ordinary border state. It lives at the volatile crossroads of religious sensitivity, a short fuse to anger, and deep psychological scars left by militancy, Operation Bluestar, and 1984. It sits adjacent to a hostile neighbour with a well-documented history of funding terror, pushing narcotics, and engineering unrest through digital propaganda.

To this already combustible mix, add a thriving drug corridor, politician-police-gangster nexuses, unemployment, a frustrated, over-educated, under-employed youth, and a once-thriving immigration pipeline to Canada now nearly shut — and you have a state ready to be manipulated again by a well-planned spark.

Let us not forget: the farmers’ agitation that shook Delhi in 2020–21 also revealed how narratives can hijack emotions in Punjab faster than facts. The state has always had a low ignition point, and religion is the matchstick most easily struck. That is why any threat to the Golden Temple is not just a law-and-order issue — it is a national emergency in slow motion.

This is not to cause panic; it is to provoke mature seriousness. Any complacency — administrative, political, or civil — could lead us down a road we already know too well. Punjab has barely emerged from its decades of blood and trauma.

God forbid, if even one of these threats is real and some anti-Punjab, anti-India element manages to sabotage the security of the Golden Temple, it would be nothing short of a civilisational catastrophe. Such an act could plunge Punjab into darkness once again, dragging with it the peace and pluralism India holds dear.

The emails reportedly used fake names, possibly those of prominent personalities. The SGPC president is concerned, but even more worrying is the fact that so many devout Sikhs visit the shrine daily — and the shrine is always open, not a fortress but a place of healing.

Any act of terror here would not just be sacrilegious — it would be a calculated strike designed to rupture social harmony across India.

It is time the Centre, the Punjab government, and Sikh religious authorities treated this not as a routine security drill but as a multi-layered threat involving geopolitical, psychological, and digital warfare.

The BSF and Punjab Police have begun checks, but equally critical are real-time, transparent communication with the public, swift investigations, and cutting off digital manipulation at the root.

Let us be clear: an attack on the Golden Temple would not just be an attack on a gurdwara — it would be an attack on India’s soul. We cannot afford another wound on this sacred body. The nation — and especially Punjab — must not sleepwalk into another storm.

Peace must be preserved. But vigilance must be uncompromising. And silence in the face of danger must not be mistaken for calm — it may be the pause before chaos.

 

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