Threat to Golden Temple is hoax

A day after national dailies reported that terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba had threatened to blow up the Golden Temple in Amritsar and the Raghunath temple in Jammu, police officials asserted that the threat was not genuine.

"We have examined the letter sent by one Karim Ansari on behalf of LeT, but it seems that someone is trying to create mischief. We have already taken precautionary measures and are trying to get to the bottom of the whole thing," Senior Superintendent of Police (Amritsar) S S Srivastva told rediff.com on phone.

A special team has been constituted to nab the man behind the threat letter that was posted from Phagwara in Punjab to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee on October 30.

"We

got the letter on Saturday last and handed over the same on Tuesday. We have alerted the special task force of the SGPC to keep an eye on the mischief creators," Daljit Singh Bedi, public relation officer, said.

According to Bedi, a similar letter was received last year as well and that too was handed over to the police. Meanwhile, thousands of Sikhs living outside India have been making inquiries from SGPC officials about the safety of the Sikh Shrine.