In June 2015 a Guru Granth Sahib Ji bir was stolen from a gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala in Faridkot district. In September posters appeared threatening desecration. In October torn pages were found scattered at Bargari, a village in the same district.
Protests spread across Punjab. On 14 October 2015 police fired on a gathering at Behbal Kalan and two men, Krishan Bhagwan Singh and Gurjeet Singh, were killed. Others were injured at Kotkapura the same day.
The investigation has run for a decade through multiple special investigation teams, a commission of inquiry under Justice Ranjit Singh, changes of government and cases in the courts. Charges have been framed against police officers. No final accountability has been established.
A number of Punjabi writers, including Surjit Patar, Dalip Kaur Tiwana and Gurbachan Singh Bhullar, returned state honours over it.
It is the event that most shaped Punjab's politics in the decade after, contributing to the collapse of one government and the eventual arrival of another.
This page reports the sequence and the state of the proceedings. It does not attribute responsibility, because after ten years the courts have not.
The word beadbi, sacrilege, entered Punjab's political vocabulary in those months and has stayed in it. Incidents reported under that name since run into the hundreds and very few have been resolved.
Police firing on protesters at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura killed two men. The investigations, the commissions and the prosecutions have run for a decade and have settled almost nothing.
It reshaped Punjab politics. The Akali Dal has not recovered from it, and the phrase beadbi has become a permanent term in the state's public argument.