SGPC president Advocate Harjinder Singh Dhami publicly threw his weight behind the Qaumi Insaaf Morcha's march to the Punjab Governor's House on August 15, a demonstration organised to press for the release of Sikh prisoners — several of whom have spent decades behind bars, in some cases well beyond the sentences originally handed down. Dhami framed his support in humanitarian terms, pointing to the prolonged incarceration of the men as a matter that could no longer be set aside.
The demand for the release of long-serving Sikh prisoners, often referred to within the community as Bandi Singhs, has been a recurring rallying point for Sikh institutions for years, and Dhami's intervention signals that the SGPC — the body responsible for managing Sikh gurdwaras across Punjab — continues to view the issue as central to its advocacy role, distinct from routine religious administration. The Governor's House march itself proceeded on August 15, coinciding with India's Independence Day, lending the demonstration additional symbolic weight as organisers argued that freedom being celebrated nationally should extend to prisoners they consider to have already served their due.
For Sangat in Jagraon and across Malwa, where the cause of Bandi Singhs is frequently raised during gurdwara diwans and community gatherings, the SGPC's public backing offers a measure of institutional momentum to a campaign that local committees have long supported through petitions and prayer. Whether the state government responds with concrete movement on individual cases in the weeks ahead remains the open question community leaders say they will be watching closely.
