Archbishop arrives in holy city, to visit Jallianwala Bagh today

Tribune News Service
Amritsar, September 9

During the last leg of his 10-day tour, the Archbishop of Canterbury, United Kingdom, Justin Portal Welby, reached Amritsar today.

Accompanied by his wife Caroline Welby, the Archbishop got a warm welcome at Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport amid Punjabi dhol beats. The bishop of the Diocese of Amritsar Church of North India, Pradeep Kumar Samantaroy, Daniel B Das and other representatives of the Christian community were present at the airport.

Later, he tweeted “Grateful for the wonderful welcome in #Amritsar today. Looking forward to spending the last leg of our pilgrimage in this special place”.

In the evening, Rev Justin Welby was hosted by DC Shiv Dular Singh at his residence in the presence of Cabinet minister Manpreet Singh Badal and information regarding the Sikh community, religion and culture was shared with him.

Tomorrow, the Archbishop would be visiting Jallianwala Bagh to pay tributes to the martyrs. Being a religious leader, he has no political authority to offer anything on behalf of the UK, yet he is expected to issue a statement about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in his personal capacity.

Later, a meeting with Akal Takht officiating Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh has been fixed. Global Sikh Council president Gurpreet Singh said a special painting of Golden Temple with Maharaja Ranjit Singh listening to ‘bani’, made by famous Hungarian artiste August Scheoefft, and replicas of coins of the Sikh Nation minted at the time of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, will be presented to Rev Justin Welby.