Bid to levy entry fee at memorial: Cong

GS Paul
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, January 14

An under construction structure at the entrance to Jallianwala Bagh here has courted controversy, with Congress legislator Raj Kumar Verka alleging that it is a ticket counter.

He claimed that the Centre was mulling a proposal to have paid entrance to the historic Jallianwala Bagh on the lines of Taj Mahal, Jantar Mantar and Qutub Minar.

Amritsar North MLA Verka, Youth Congress president Aditya Dutti and members of martyrs’ families protested at Jallianwala Bagh on Tuesday. They said entry ticket for a “shaheedi sthal” would be no less than “jazia” tax.

The protesters also objected to the location of the structure as it has been constructed in front of Shaheed Udham Singh’s statue, hampering its view. Officials are tight-lipped whether or not the statue would be shifted to some other spot. Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Trust member Shwait Malik, however, dismissed the Congress charge. “There is no proposal to introduce entry ticket. The Opposition is creating panic to gain political mileage,” he said. The BJP leader, though, justified the construction of the structure by saying that only a “provision” of a ticket counter had been made as part of a Centre’s project of renovating Jallianwala Bagh.

“The structure could be used as a ticket counter to recover maintenance cost on the lines of other monuments located in various parts of the country. But, as of now, there is no intention to have a paid entry to Jallianwala Bagh,” he said.

Sunil Kapoor, the great grandson of Lala Wasoo Mal Kapoor who was killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, said he was pained to learn that the historical place would turn into a commercial venture. “I fail to understand what is driving the Centre to charge money for entering Jallianwala Bagh, where thousands laid down their lives instead of bowing before the British,” he said.