jalandhar shiromani akali dal sad president sukhbir singh badal now might be cautioning punjab chief minister amarinder singh and punjab police against indiscriminate use of the unlawful activities prevention act uapa in punjab but during sadbjp regime the state police had used historic literature as evidence to book three sikh youths under the stringent law for waging war against the state among such evidence was a paragraph from a letter written from prison by noted freedom fighter and sikh spiritual leader bhai randhir singh in 1926 a poem written by bhai fauja singh who was among the 13 sikhs killed in nirankarisikh clash on april 13 1978 and pictures of those 13 sikhs the sikh youths arwinder singh 29 surjit singh 27 and ranjit singh 29 were not just booked under uapa by nawanshahr police in may 2016 then additional chief secretary home had even given sanction for their prosecution under uapa but a nawanshahr based court found it invalid even as it convicted the three men under sections 121 and 121 of ipc for waging or attempting to wage war against government of india and sentenced them to life imprisonmentaccording to punjab and haryana high court advocate rajwinder singh bains who is now pursuing their appeal in the high court it was the first case in which accused were convicted and sentenced for waging war against the state or attempting it on the basis of books literature pamphlets and without any recovery of arms or any act of violencein 1926 lodged in nagpur jail bhai randhir singh wrote a letter in punjabi on his political views in the light of sikh philosophy a paragraph in that letter reads we shall not be subservient to the unjust rule and in a just rule we shall not indulge in raajgardi staterepression but in a rule in which powerdrunk violate our religious practices using state powers we shall uproot that raaj ruling establishment with the support of god the letter is part of his book jail chithhian letters from prison first published in 1936 which remains his widely known work among his over 20 other books with several reprints and freely availablethis paragraph printed on a pamphlet along with his picture became khalistan shabdavali wording and incriminating material for punjab police to book the three under uapaas the nawanshahr court convicted and sentenced the trio to life imprisonment in the beginning of 2018 it also mentioned bhai randhir singhs khalistan shabdavali while referring to the paragraph on the pamphlet as incriminating material along with some other printed material including a poem written by bhai fauja singh incidentally bhai fauja singh and other 12 other sikhs were killed during badals second term as cm and nirankari chief and others had faced murder trial for the mass murder the police and court had particularly found wording band band katwauna to sacrifice oneself limb by limb in fauja singhs poem as provocative these words are also part of sikh ardaas and are