The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said the Congress government had committed sacrilege against Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji by swapping the face of Sikh Guru with the French statesman Napoleon Bonaparte in a computer-generated portrait recently published in the newspapers during the commemoration of the 350th Birth Anniversary of the Tenth Guru. The party also demanded strict action against the erring officials and advertising agency as well.In a statement released from the party headquarters, the SAD spokesman and senior vice president Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema said the painting in question, which was being shown as of Guru Sahib in the advertisement released about the commemoration of the 350th birthday of the Tenth Guru, was actually that of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. He said the Face of the Sikh Guru was swapped with the French ruler in the computer generated copy. He said the origin of the tempered painting dated back to 1800 and came into existence almost after a century of Guru Sahib’s period. He said “I wonder why the Punjab government committed this grave sin of passing off the tempered painting of Napoleon as the Guru Sahib’s when there were plenty of the Tenth gurus’ paintings available”.
Dr. Cheema said that the painting of a horse-mounted Napoleon Bonaparte is world famous and has been displayed at various museums across the world and published in books as well. He said that the Guru Sahib’s painting published by the Punjab government shared many unmistakable resemblances with the Napoleon Bonaparte’s painting. "It has the same horse with resemblance of face, body, hair on neck, tail, stirrup and other things as shown in the Napoleon painting. Even the clothes Guru Sahib was shown wearing in the painting were the same the Napoleon had in the original painting", he added.Dr. Cheema further added that on the pious occasion of Guru Sahib’ s Parkash Purb, the happening of this unfortunate incident has hurt the feelings of the Sikhs across the world. He asked the Punjab government to immediately apologize from the Sikh community for this unfortunate incident and remove the controversial painting from the media as well as public places, besides taking stern action against the persons accused of this grave sacrilege.