KARACHI: The Pakistan Sikh Council has asked the provincial home department to increase security at Sikh temples across the province.

Sources said that the request was made by the PSC after the home department got reports about a possible targeted attack `either on a high-profile Sikh personality or a gurduwara in Sindh`.

An official said that a threat alert was sent to the PSC in November, 2015. Following the alert, thePSC wrote to the home department as well as the Sindh police chief in Dec 2015 to increase security at around 24 gurdwaras across the province and also alerted other temples across Punjab.

In the letter, the PSC patron-in-chief, Sardar Ramesh Singh, complained that the security plan `has not been implemented as yet`.

The recent communication between the home department and the PSC took place last month a week after the killing of Sardar Soran Singh, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf lawmaker and adviser to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, inPir Baba, Buner.

However, the KP police recently claimed that the assassination was a case of some `political rivalry` and not carried out by the outlawed Tehreek-iTaliban Pakistan who claimed the responsibility of the attack.

Apart from Soran Singh`s killing, which is a huge shock for the Sikh community in particular, reports of skirmishes between the Sikh and Hindu communities in Sindh also surfaced from time to time.

According to Ramesh Singh, the cases of defiling of Sikh`s holy book mostly occurred in areas whereHindus and Sikhs shared a temple.

Speaking about a recent case reported from Haji Sher in Bolan, Balochistan, Ramesh Singh said the `holy book [Guru Granth Sahibj was stolen from the gurduwara but was eventually recovered after the temple patron received a phone call from an unknown caller`.

He also claimed that one of the two men arrested by the Haji Sher police, Mahesh Kumar, was the disciple of a Hindu caretaker in Shikarpur from where the incidents of defiling and defacing the holy book were initially reported from.