Jul 18, 2012 - AMRITSAR: The din of ringing cell phones in the Sikh's holiest of holy shrine Golden Temple has made Sikh's apex body Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) to mull over installing jammers in the Golden Temple complex to prevent the jarring mobile phone ring tones from ringing which disturb the concentration of fellow devotees and the sanctity of religious place.
SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar told TOI on Wednesday that there had been complaints from devotees about the maddening tunes and beeps of mobile phones which disturbs them and obstructs in performing worship. "We are planning to constitute a committee to submit its suggestions to check the nuisance from the religious place" he said. The suggestions received till now includes depositing mobile phones before entering in the Golden Temple complex and returning them to devotees while leaving or to install the jammers in the whole complex.
"Depositing and returning of mobile phones is a gigantic task as more than 1 lakh devotees pays obeisance at Golden Temple everyday, the better option appears to be the installation of jammers " he said. He said normally people didn't follow the cell phone etiquettes so they had to think on these lines. He informed that SGPC had already installed jammer between Darshani Deori and the sanctum sanctorum of Golden Temple. Other suggestions received by SGPC to check the mobile phone ringing was to issue appeal to all the visiting devotees to turn off their mobile phones or put them on silent or vibration mode before entering in the holy complex.
"Being without mobile phone in today's life is something unimaginable but it is a good idea to jam the mobile phone signals in holy place and it should be in all religious places" opined Ravinder Singh, a businessman from Ambala who was at Golden Temple to pay obeisance along with his family members.