AMRITSAR: The first day of the SGPC jatha's arrival in Pakistan, to take part in celebrations in connection with the 550th birth anniversary of Sikh faith founder
Guru Nanak
Dev, got mired into a controversy after a photograph of
Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee
(DSGMC) president Manjinder Singh Sirsa meeting Mumbai terror mastermind Hafiz Sayed's pro-Khalistani Sikh friend
Gopal Singh Chawla
went viral on social media on Tuesday.
In the photograph, Sirsa is seen with Chawla at Gurdwara
Nankana Sahib
, Pakistan. Sirsa was quick in posting a denial and uploaded a video message, saying Chawla sought a meeting with him which he turned down.
"He is a controversial person. He came to meet me in the room where I was having tea, but I refused to meet him and left the room on seeing him. But his gunmen took the picture from behind," Sirsa is heard saying in the video message. "They are so mischievous, they themselves started circulating the picture in social media that I met Chawla." "I am a nationalist and have no connection with anyone who is anti-India," he added.
However, minutes after Sirsa's post, Chawla also uploaded a video message in which he is heard saying, "He (Sirsa) met me. I talked to him about drugs and incidents of suicide in India. I embraced him, I welcomed him." He said he was neither part of Evacuee Trust Property Board, which looks after holy places of minorities in the country, nor the Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee but no one could stop him from going to a gurdwara as he was a Sikh.
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