4 min readChandigarhApr 24, 2026 04:25 AM IST
A special team from the Engineers Regiment of the Army’s 1 Armoured Division along with those of the Punjab Police, fire brigade and the National Disaster Response Force on Thursday carried out mock drills on a 400-ft telecom tower in the Samana area of Patiala.
The drill was part of preparations for an unusual challenge: bring down a man who has been sitting in protest atop the tower for the last over 18 months, a rare and physically punishing feat. Gurjeet Singh Khalsa, a resident of Kheri Nagaian village in Patiala, climbed atop the tower on October 12, 2024, carrying with him a blanket and his licensed pistol. His demand: a stringent law to punish those indulging in sacrilege of holy scriptures. While taking perch atop the tower, he had threatened to shoot dead anyone who tried to approach, before turning the gun on himself.
Now that Punjab government has notified the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Act, 2026 — a stringent anti-sacrilege law that provides life imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 25 lakh, for any act of ‘baedbi’ against the Guru Granth Sahib — Khalsa’s co-protesters on ground — the Dharam Yudh Morcha — reached out to the Patiala district administration seeking help to bring him down by April 24. The extraction plan, however, hit a roadblock.
Khlasa, who would have weighed just over 75 kgs when he launched the protest, now tilts the scale at around 120 kgs, the weight mostly attributed to the limited mobility in the makeshift room atop the tower. Though he recently said that he will climb down on his own if the administration failed to make any arrangement, those working on the plan to extract him said that would be life threatening. On Tuesday, Patiala deputy commissioner, Himanshu Aggarwal, wrote a letter to the government requesting support from the Army for extracting Khalsa, while highlighting the risks involved in bringing him down.
On Thursday, the Engineers Regiment of the Patiala-based 1 Armoured Division devised a special winch and pulley mechanism for the purpose. The regiment has formed a special team, which conducted a reconnaissance of the tower to devise a safe way to bring Khalsa down.
“He has been sitting there without any physical activity and has put on a lot of weight. He is around 120 kgs now and cannot move without considerable risk to life and limb. The crane available with the civil administration can only go upto 200 feet. So the Army Engineers team have devised a special rope pulley and winch system along with platforms at regular intervals up the tower to get him down,” said Colonel J S Sandhu (retd), advisor, civil-military affairs, HQs Western Command. Specialised equipment and resources have been inducted by the Army and a robust winching mechanism for safe evacuation has been established at the site. “A full scale mock drill was conducted today validating the preparedness and efficacy of the plan,” he said.
For the last over 560 days, a resident of Kheri Nagaian has been climbing up the tower every day to provide Khalsa food and bring the waste down. In between, doctors too visited Khalsa in his waterproof-tent.
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“We want him to be present when the bhog for the Path takes place,” said Kaka Singh Kotra, a member of the committee leading the Dharam Yudh Morcha.
