Hidden Lies

Sedgley Street Gurdwara (After Hours)

Unfortunately over the past couple of months there has been a great deal of propaganda and defamation against the Sikh Forum and our many members by a small number of our community who are trying to muddy the waters to take the attention away from their real deceptive and dishonest behaviour.

In this article we will discuss and explore the following points:

How the installation of the seating was decided and implemented
The manner in which this seating was destroyed
The actions of all parties after this point
- Requests for disclosure of what happened to the seating
- Truth revealed to Sangat by The General Secretary of the Gurdwara
- Intimidation and aggressive behaviour from culprits
- Police involved and Criminal Damage reported
- Case collapsed after admissions from the president

The Request For Seating From The Sangat

This committee (2013 - 2015) inherited a request from members of the Sangat asking for seating for the disabled and elderly who were no longer able to sit on the floor anymore, which was ignored by the previous committee. But this committee eventually discussed the matter and fully passed that there should be seating provided, within weeks this was actioned by the committee at a cost of approximately £5000 of Sangat donations.

The committee had the benches installed to their own specification, but when they were installed they themselves complained that the seating was made too high as did the people using them, but they were just thankful for being able to sit in the Darbar once again. Initially some committee members stated they would have the seating adjusted in the near future which no one had any issues with.

Then out of the blue it came out that the committee were planning on installing screens in front of the newly installed seating, which shocked members of the Sangat who took up a campaign to try and reason with the committee about their plans. They were rudely and abusively dismissed by the committee which pushed the Sangat members to start a petition against the screens, which was again rudely and abusively dismissed by the committee who rushed their plans of installing the screens without notice, at a cost of £6000 over night, during an Akhand Paath Sahib (Three day continuous reading of Sri Guru Granth Sahib).

The Destruction Of Seating In The Darbar

Then again like bolt of lighting out of the blue the Sangat attended GNSG on a Saturday morning to find the seating from the Darbar destroyed and piled in a heap on the Gurdwara car park. This was then hidden and disposed of in secret by the President of the committee himself who then publicly denied all knowledge of what had happened to the seating, even though it later came to light that he had actually secretly instructed the destruction of the seating.

The following video is CCTV footage of the night the seating was destroyed, showing members of the Sarbloh Gym, Akaal Fight Club and one serving member of the committee destroying the seating in an intoxicated and comical manner.

You only see one of their group pay his respects Maharaj whilst the others walk under the camera to the rear of the hall where the seating was located behind screens, from where they were ripped out and carried outside, which is all just off camera.
The CCTV picks them up again outside on the car park where they are carrying whats left of the seating to middle of the car park.
You will then witness the most bizarre unexplainable behaviour, where you see grown men jumping on cushions and kicking caucuses apart before piling them up against the wall. All being instigated by a member of the Committee who you will see wearing a Blue Chola and a white scarf on the left hand side leading the group.
Then we cut to several hours later early in the morning where you can see people arriving to drop their children off for punjabi school and along with them you will see the President of the Gurdwara arrive and looks at the mess and immediately goes inside and gets keys for an outside storage container where he moves all the destroyed seating to.

Photographs of some of the members of Sarbloh Gym/Akaal Fight Club that can be clearly seen in the above video

The Actions Of All Parties After The Incident

Requests for Disclosure from the Sangat

Initially the President denied all knowledge of what had happened to the seating and when members of the Sangat challenged him about it as they had witnessed him removing the debris he just stated (loosely translated from punjabi) "It was just our children" and just left it at that, refusing to comment any further.The Sikh Forum then wrote to the committee for answers about the incident and asked for the culprits to be named and dealt with as per the Gurdwara's Constitution to which the committee as per usual just ignored all letters of concern.

The Truth Revealed To the Sangat

The General Secretary of the Gurdwara then took the stage on Sunday morning and announced the truth to the Sangat about what had actually happened to the seating and who had done it as nobody actually knew fully at this time what had happened. Apart of the Sangat on this day were all the main members of the committee and the culprits of the criminal damage. The president sat at the front with his head hung and did not say a word in response to the revelations the General Secretary had just exposed to the Sangat who were shocked and disgusted by it. None of the culprits stood up to justify their actions either and just stood or sat there without response to the allegations.

But later some of these men stated to members of the sangat that they destroyed the seating because it was too high and another was heard saying that they were trying to adjust the height on them and removed them to make them shorter.

Intimidation And Aggressive Behaviour

But after the General Secretary left the stage a couple of the culprits immediately tried to intimidate him and it was only after third party intervened that the culprits backed off. You must remember the General Secretary is a man in his 80's who has an impeccable reputation who has served this Gurdwara without blemish for most of his life and the culprits of this damage all vary in age from their teens all the way up to their 30's.

These men have then wrote a letter to the General Secretary demanding a meeting with him with nothing other than few lines on a piece of paper without an address from whom the letter was from or any signatures on it, yet the authors were the very same people that caused the damage and beadbi (disrespect) in the Gurdwara. After a couple of days wondering why they had not received any reply from the General Secretary 4-5 of them marched into the office when he was alone and demanded aggressively for the General Secretary to sign that he had received their letter whilst shoving a mobile phone in his face after he refused to sign anything under duress and pointing out that the letter it self was not even signed, so why should he sign it?

Again the matter did not escalate any further due to other member of the Sangat walking in on them. On the same day they made several attempts to get the General secretary by himself and sent different people to try different approaches to get him to sign that he had received their letter. After all these attempts the General Secretary has taken advice about what options he had in regards to the ongoing harassment and intimidation by these people since his revelation to the Sangat of their actions.

Matter Reported To The Police

After fearing that the matter was going to escalate and not wanting to deal with their thuggish behaviour at his age he decided to report their behaviour to the Police along with the damage they had caused to Gurdwara property after the President and Vice President of the Gurdwara refused to address the issue in any way and seemed to be encouraging this behaviour as they felt that they had been shamed in public by the General Secretary's speech.

A criminal investigation was conducting in regards to the General Secretary's complaints which resulted in some members of the Sarbloh Gym and Akaal Fight Club being interviewed about the part in damaging the seating. The investigation carried on for several months throughout which time the President denied any involvement with the destruction of the seating .

Then on the 20th October 2014 the General Secretary received a letter from West Midlands Police informing him that matter was being 'No Further Actioned' due to them receiving a letter from the President and signed by him on the 14th August 2014 confirming that the committee had sanctioned the removal of the seats and were requesting the investigation be discontinued. Also the suspects also stated that they were under impression that they were carrying out the committees instructions.

The questions that arise from this are :

If the committee had sanctioned the destruction of the new seating then why weren't the rest of the members of the committee aware of these instructions ?
If the seating was to be removed for what ever reason. Why did they decide that it needed to be removed over night during an Akhand Paath Sahib why could it not wait until a week day when there would not have been Paath going on for them to do Beadbi (disrespect) of.
Also if the president did give permission to destroy the seating why did he let these men take the fall and not stand up and justify his 'lawful' instructions in front of the Sangat when the General Secretary spoke on stage about the destruction of the seating. Should he not of replied in their defence at that time ? It is not like anybody can stop the president from speaking on stage, but instead he sat there with his head hung low in embarrassment.
If The destruction was truly sanctioned by the committee why did it take him so long to write his letter ? because these men had the investigation hanging over their heads for several months and this could have all been avoided. But this was not possible as there was no meeting or sanction from the committee to remove the seating. If there was it was only known to the President and the culprits themselves, other wise the General Secretary would have also known about such agreement and would not have needed to report the matter to the police.
Why do these men now support the President and his lies if he let them dangle for months worrying about their fate before writing his letter coming clean about his involvement. Because they are complicit in all that is wrong in this Gurdwara management.

Summary

The Management committee first passed and fitted the seating with the Sangat's donations and then either the President or Valjinder Singh has taken it upon himself to destroy the newly fitted seating with a group young local men without any authority to do so what so ever.

When certain members of the Committee refused to comment on what had happened to the seating upon numerous requests for accountability and transparency from the Sangat. The General Secretary got up on stage after warning the President to come clean about the scandal and told the whole Sangat what had actually happened to the seating.

Once outed certain members of this group of young men have then became aggressive and hostile towards the 80+ year old General Secretary making demands for him to sign their letters that were not even signed by them. Not wanting to be in fear of being accosted everyday when he came to the Gurdwara he has reported the matter to the police.

The police Investigation into the criminal damage is discontinued due to a letter from the President proclaiming that the removal of the seating was sanction by the committee, thus absolving the group of any blame.

We feel the President and certain members of the committee have lied to the sangat continuously and unashamedly in direct contravention of the Gurdwara's constitution and we are now going to trust these same people to select 'honest and virtuous' five Sikh's to select the next committee ? The same committee that has a court case pending against them, they are no longer fit for the roles they fill and thus unfit to select the next five Sikh's.

We leave it to yourselves the readers, whether you believe that the Sarbloh Gym, Akaal Fight Club and the Gurdwara management committee are honest in their actions or intentions.

"An Honest person, has not the need to tell the world he is Honest , for he will only be judged by the intentions of his deeds"