Bhagat Singh is innocent, will prove it: Lahore lawyer
Anirudh Gupta in Ferozepur
THE Indian subcontinent’s history is such that it repeats much less than it reinvents itself, when we talk of people, places and the shared heritage. How else would you explain the objective of advocate Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi, a resident of the other side of Punjab, who wants to resurrect the case of Shahid Bhagat Singh? The Pakistani lawyer has initiated a legal battle to prove the innocence of the gallant martyrs in the Lahore High Court.
He was in Ferozepur, where he paid tributes to the Shahid-e-Azam on his 110th birth anniversary.
Dressed in a yellow turban, Qureshi said his grandfather, Haji Abdul Rehman Qureshi, was the president of the Congress unit of Abohar. “My father is a senior lawyer in the Pakistan Supreme Court with almost 50 years of legal experience.”
About the Bhagat Singh case, Qureshi says a division bench of the Lahore High Court in February last year had asked the chief justice to set up a larger bench to hear the petition. “The final outcome is awaited. I have faith in Pakistan’s judiciary.”
Qureshi, who runs Bhagat Singh’s Memorial Foundation in Lahore, says the martyr was an ardent freedom fighter who lit the eternal flame of liberty and went to the gallows for the sake of freedom of the motherland. “Many Pakistanis, especially in the Punjabi-speaking Lahore area, consider him a hero,” he said. “The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had twice paid tributes to him in the erstwhile Central Legislative Assembly.”
Qureshi wants the court to set aside the sentence of Singh by exercising principles of review and order the government of Pakistan to honour him with a state award. He has written to the government for putting up a statue of the revolutionary at Shadman Chowk in central Lahore where he was hanged along with Sukhdev and Rajguru.
In 2014, he says, the Lahore police rummaged through records of the Anarkali police station on the court’s order and managed to find the First Information Report on the killing of British police officer John Saunders in 1928. “A copy of the FIR was given to me as per the court order,” he says. Written in Urdu, the FIR was registered with the police station on December 17, 1928 at 4.30 pm against two ‘unknown gunmen’. The case was registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. Bhagat Singh’s did not figure in the FIR even though he was eventually handed down the death sentence for the murder.
Qureshi says though the FIR is not available with the Indian government, he has given a copy to Panipat-based advocate Momim Malik, who plans to file a similar plea in an Indian court.
Qureshi says special judges of the tribunal handling Singh’s case awarded death sentence to him without hearing the 450 witnesses in the case. Singh’s lawyers were not given the opportunity to cross-examine them. “I will establish Bhagat Singh’s innocence in the Saunders’ case,” he says. He has also filed another petition in the Lahore High Court for the early hearing of his case.
Qureshi says Britain should apologize for causing “judicial murders” of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev and pay compensation to their families. “If required, we’d file an amended petition making the British government a party to case,” he said.
While crossing to India, Qureshi brought water from the martyr’s house at Banga village besides leaves of the mango tree planted by Sardar Arjun Singh, Bhagat Singh’s grandfather, about 200 years ago.
“I have brought a message of love and peace from the people of Pakistan,” he says. He wants the Lahore-Hussaniwala border opened for trade and transit. “It will also facilitate Lahore residents’ visit to the martyrs’ memorial.”
He also wants visa process eased for people like him. “I appeal to the governments of both the countries to let this review case become a strong foundation for burying the hatchet, and revive mutual trust and peace,” says Qureshi.
