NEW DELHI: Three people have been arrested on charges of trying to sell off an old, hand-written copy of the Guru Granth Sahib – the holy book of the Sikhs – to some persons in the city for Rs 20 crore ($4m).
The accused have been identified as Praveen Babbar, who owns a hotel in Karol Bagh; Santosh Singh from Mirzapur, UP; and Kalyaneshwar Gautam from West Champaran in Bihar.
They told cops during interrogation that the copy of the Guru Granth Sahib was 300 years old and they had procured it at Patna Sahib Gurudwara – the city in Bihar that was the birthplace of the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh and the location of the one of the takhts of the Sikhs. A police team has been sent to Bihar to investigate the matter, while expert opinion has been sought to find out the historicity of the holy book.
Sources said that the Karol Bagh police had been tipped off about the accused and their bid to sell the book. They learnt that these people were staying at a hotel in Gurgaon and a team was sent to raid the place. But the accused managed to escape.
Later, cops learnt about the involvement of the hotelier, and raided Hotel Rahul Palace in Saraswati Marg, Karol Bagh, and arrested the trio. The copy was found in a hotel room, inside a bag.