THE SIKH community in Portsmouth has welcomed a new ‘guru’ to the city for the first time in more than 50 years.

It comes in the form of a new copy of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy text. It will be housed at at Gurudwara Guru Nanak Sar, the temple on Margate Road, Southsea. 

The book is treated as a living guru, including being put to bed every night in a room behind the temple’s main hall. 

More than 40 members of the community attended the ceremony at the Gurudwara, which was established in 1962. 

Jaswant Singh Digpal, 59, a property developer and secretary of the Gurudwara, was filled with a ‘massive sense of achievement’ in organising the rare occasion. 

He said: ‘This is the first time a new Guru Granth Sahib has come to Portsmouth in nearly 60 years. It’s a historic day.’