Pak body moves HC for Bhagat Singh’s statue in Lahore

Sanjiv Kumar Bakshi

Hoshiarpur, February 21

The Shaheed Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation, Pakistan, has filed a writ petition in the Lahore High Court, seeking Shadman Chowk in Lahore, where Bhagat Singh was hanged on March 23, 1931, to be named after the martyr and his statue be installed there.

The writ petition has been accepted for hearing by the court under urgent matters and the first hearing will be held on Thursday.

Foundation chairman Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi said earlier demand letters in this regard were handed over to the Mayor and Chief Commissioner of Lahore in January, but no action was initiated by the authorities.

He said Shaheed Bhagat Singh was a great revolutionary of the subcontinent.

This petition has been filed through Supreme Court advocate Abdul Rasheed Qureshi.

Qureshi said the foundation has requested the High Court to direct the Chief Secretary of the Government of Punjab (Pakistan), Mayor of Lahore and the Deputy Commissioner of Lahore to decide the application/representation filed in January seeking the renaming of the Shadman Chowk and Bhagat Singh’s statue to be raised there.

Qureshi said, “Bhagat Singh is as much of Pakistan as much as he is of India. He was born in present-day Pakistan, so he is the hero of India and the son of Pakistan. We have also requested the Pakistan Government that Shaheed Bhagat Singh should be rewarded with Pakistan’s highest gallantry award - Nishan-a-Haider.”

Qureshi, whose foundation is also contesting the reopening of the Bhagat Singh trial case in the Lahore High Court, said, “We are hopeful that soon it will be proven that the British Government’s decision to hang Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru was wrong. It was actually not hanging but a judicial murder.”