The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee plans to appeal to the international community to seek a ban on the auction of all kinds of religious relics. The decision comes in light of the controversy over the auction of a medieval-era armour, professed to be one, belonging to Guru Gobind Singh Ji by the Sotheby’s in London.

The auctioning agency which initially stated that the armour belonged to the Guru, has now released another statement concerning its origin, which contradicts the previously made claim.

This has not only agitated Sikhs all over the world but has also triggered off a new debate on the issue of such auctions being ethical or not. The Sikh body also wants to take legal action against the auctioning agency for playing with the sentiments of the community.

“The auction house has hurt our sentiments by first leading on the Sikhs to assume that the armour belonged to the Guru and then issuing contradictory statements about its origin." SGPC general secretary Sukhdev Singh Bhaur told The Times of India.

The Sikhs have now demanded that, the auction of such relics be banned as such deeds hurt religious sentiments. Not only that, according to them the rightful place of all such relics is with the main body corresponding to that religion, which happens to be the SGPC in case of the Sikhs. Any historical relics belonging or related to the Gurus are the heritage of the Sikh religion and a property of all Sikhs world over.

The SGPC which was planning to hold up the auction scheduled 9th April, although has no intentions of doing so now, has however, appointed two London-based members of its panel of experts to collect evidence of how Sotheby’s may have tried to mislead the public on the armour, by propagating that it was associated with Guru Gobind Singh.

It is being suspected that the auctioning agency deliberately led the public to believe that the armour belonged to Guru Gobind Singh Ji, in order to encourage the Sikh community to go for higher bidding for the piece.

If this is proved to be true, then the SGPC plans to sue the agency for this act. The experts would also try to trace out other lost relics which were taken out of Punjab after the annexation of the state by the British in 1849.

It now remains to be seen how far the demands of the SGPC regarding the ban on auction of religious ethics is given an ear to, by the international community and the UNESCO, whom they plan to approach next.