Senior Congress leader and Jalandhar Cantt MLA Pargat Singh on Wednesday accused the AAP government of attempting to amend the Jagat Jyot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Act, 2008, merely to divert public attention from its failure to punish the perpetrators of sacrilege incidents.Singh said the government should instead revive and strengthen the Punjab Prevention of Offences against Religious Scriptures Bill, 2025, which already exists and could be revived without tampering with the 2008 Act, which deals exclusively with the printing, publication, and distribution of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib.“The intention of the ruling party is to confuse those demanding a strong law against sacrilege. Instead of bringing a stringent Act and arresting those behind the beadbi incidents, they are playing politics with religious sentiments,” he said.He pointed out that the report of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha select committee — headed by AAP MLA Inderbir Singh Nijjar, who is also chairman of the Chief Khalsa Diwan — on suggested amendments to the anti-sacrilege Bill has still not been tabled in the House.“If the government is serious about amending the sacrilege law in the proposed special session of the Vidhan Sabha on April 13, the select committee report should form the basis of the legislation,” Pargat Singh added.He recalled that the Centre had rejected both the 2016 anti-sacrilege law brought by the SAD-BJP government and the amendments introduced by the Congress government in 2018.Proposals to bring sacrilege cases under legal purview in 2016 and 2018 ultimately remained redundant due to lack of political will, he said.The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has also strongly opposed any amendment to the 2008 Act, arguing that it pertains only to maintaining protocols for printing, publication and distribution of Sri Guru Granth Sahib and has no connection with sacrilege incidents. The SGPC has termed any change to its original format as “unethical”.Ignoring the SGPC’s objections, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann held a meeting with representatives of the Sant Samaj at the Circuit House in Amritsar on March 21. Later, he announced that a special session of the Vidhan Sabha would be convened on April 13 to amend the Act and bring a stringent law against beadbi (sacrilege).The proposed legislation, according to the CM, would include strong punishment, heavy fines, confiscation of the accused’s property, and provisions to deal with offences committed through morphed digital content.Pargat Singh said the Congress would oppose any move that dilutes the sanctity of the 2008 Act or distracts from the core issue of delivering justice in sacrilege cases.