Modi to visit Komagata Maru Museum in Vancouver

Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 7

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will visit Canada next week, will go to Komagata Maru Museum and Monument located in Vancouver and is also likely to pay obeisance at the Ross Street gurdwara there.

Avinash Rai Khanna, a BJP member of Rajya Sabha, said today that during the BJP’s executive meeting at Bengaluru, he had requested the Prime Minister to visit the Komagata Maru Museum and the gurdwara in Vancouver. He said he had got the information that the PM had included it in his schedule.

“The PM’s visit to the museum and the gurdwara there will send a good message to the Indian diaspora,” said Tarlochan Singh, a former Member of Rajya Sabha.

He said it would be after a long time that an Indian Prime Minister was going on a bilateral visit to Canada, where Indians live in large numbers and Punjabis had achieved a huge success in various fields, including politics.

Recently, the Punjab Assembly had passed a resolution asking the Union Government to tell the Canadian Government to seek apology for inhuman treatment to Indians who travelled on a Komagata Maru ship to Vancouver but were not allowed to enter the port.

They had to anchor the ship for weeks outside the port and were not even allowed to procure food. They were forced to return to India. When they returned to the Budge-Budge ghat in Kolkata, some of them were shot dead by British rulers of the country.

Tarlochan Singh, who is a member of the national committee set up to pay tributes to martyrs of Komagata Maru, said the Union Government had released funds to the tune of Rs 23 crore to do the needful. He said a big memorial would be set up at the Budge-Budge ghat in Kolkata.

Besides, a memorial of Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna, the first founder president of the Gadhar party, will be raised in Amritsar.