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Burning the flame of nationalism at Jallianwala Bagh

AMRITSAR: LPG dealer Moti Khurrana, whose brainchild was to set up Amar Jyoti at the Jallianwala Bagh, feels proud to have paid a kind of tribute that will be remembered forever.

Burning the flame of nationalism at Jallianwala Bagh

Moti Khurrana



Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 9

LPG dealer Moti Khurrana, whose brainchild was to set up Amar Jyoti at the Jallianwala Bagh, feels proud to have paid a kind of tribute that will be remembered forever.

He had been lobbying with the local officials of the Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs Memorial Society decades ago but the message did not go across.

However, he availed of the opportunity during the visit of the then Indian Oil executive director Prashanto Banerjee. He conveyed to him the idea and volunteered to pay for the construction of the Amar Jyoti. After a long wait, his idea was approved and he paid to install the LPG pipeline and construct a cylinder room. Architect Ranjit Singh Rana also did not charge for it.

As many as six LPG refills are supplied at the historic Bagh every week the cost of which is borne by the IOC. The state-run company is currently getting the Amar Jyoti memorial cleaned ahead of the centenary celebrations.

His father Dr Aishi Lal along with his batch mates from Lahore’s King Edward Medical College was in the city that day. His friends, the famous ophthalmologist Dr Tulsi Dass, the zoologist Dr Baldev Singh, surgeon Dr Ram Chand Khanna and Dr Fazal Mahmood were in town to buy clothes and eat at the famous Mahashiya Da Dhaba, now Bharawan Da Dhaba.

However, his relatives did not allow them to visit as an Army column had moved in. Moti Khurrana was also the first distributor of LPG in Punjab when he floated the Graduate Gas Service with his brother Sunder in 1971. The Khuranas have been supplying free of cost LPG cylinders at the Attari-Wagah joint check-post. They supply 100 cylinders daily at Guru Ramdas Langar Hall in Golden Temple and have received the best distributor many a time.

Had set up Amar Jyoti 

As the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is being observed this month, LPG dealer Moti Khurrana, whose brainchild was to set up Amar Jyoti at the Jallianwala Bagh, reminisced how the thought germinated in his mind and took him long to convince the authorities. 

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