Bhagat Singh's 118th birth anniversary celebrated in Lahore High Court

Lahore, Sep 27 (PTI) Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh's 118th birth anniversary was celebrated in Lahore High Court in Pakistan on Saturday with a demand to award him the highest civilian honours of both the countries.

Bhagat Singh was born on September 27, 1907 in undivided India's Banga village of Lyallpur, which is now called Faisalbad, about 130 kms west of Lahore.

The Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation chairman Imtiaz Rasheed Qureshi, who wore a shirt with Bhagat Singh's picture on it, along with other lawyers of the high court cut a cake at the lawns of the Lahore High Court and chanted peace slogans.

Qureshi, chief guest advocate Raja Zulqarnain and Pak-India Business Council head Noor Muhammad Kasuri and others paid rich tributes to Bhagat Singh at the event.

Calling Singh a “common hero for both India and Pakistan,” the participants passed a resolution demanding that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi should confer India's highest civil award Bharat Ratna and Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif should award Pakistan's highest civil award Nishan e Pakistan to Bhagat Singh.

They also demanded that Bhagat Singh be included in the educational curriculum, his commemorative stamps and coins should also be issued and a major road in Lahore should be named after him.

Qureshi also said the authorities should immediately name Shadman Chowk --- where Bhagat Singh was hanged -- in Lahore after the revolutionary. This has been the Foundation’s demand for at least a decade.

Singh was just 23 when he was hanged by British rulers on March 23, 1931 in Lahore, after being tried for hatching a conspiracy against the colonial government. The case was filed against Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru for allegedly killing British police officer John P Saunders.

In 2024, the provincial government in Punjab opened to tourists a Bhagat Singh Gallery at the historical Poonch House in Lahore, where the freedom fighters’ trial was conducted more than nine decades ago. PTI MZ NPK NPK