AMRITSAR: Former general secretary of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) Kiranjot Kaur has said withdrawal of the dossier for getting the Golden Temple on the Unesco World Heritage Site list was a wrong decision. Kaur, who had relentlessly worked to prepare the dossier, blamed the ignorance of then SGPC leadership and misinformation campaign for withdrawal of the dossier at the eleventh hour.

"Dossier was withdrawn one month before the meeting of world heritage committee of the Unesco to put the Golden Temple on the list by the then SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur. It was a wrong decision and based on misinformation," Kaur told TOI on Saturday.

Kaur said that the ongoing social media misinformation campaign that the world heritage committee of Unesco would consider the Golden Temple for inclusion in the list during its upcoming meeting in June was baseless. "The Golden Temple is not being considered for the World Heritage Site tag," she said.

She said that SGPC had hired Delhi-based Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) to prepare the nomination dossier and paid Rs 20 lakh. While claiming that getting the world heritage status would have not in any way interfered in the functioning of SGPC, she said that the dossier had two parts - core precinct which included the Golden Temple complex and buffer zone which had the municipal corporation area.