DAILY TIMES – 107TH BIRTHDAY OF BHAGAT SINGH CELEBRATED
Published: Daily Times – September 29,2013
107th birthday of Bhagat Singh celebrated
Staff Report
LAHORE: The 107th birthday of Bhagat Singh was observed on Saturday to pay tribute to the freedom fighter’s contributions against the British imperialistic rule in the Indian Subcontinent.
The Bhagat Singh Memorial Committee, the Awami Workers Party (AWP), the National Student Federation (NSF), the Institute for Peace and Secular Studies (IPPS), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society activists jointly celebrated Bhagat Singh’s birthday at Shadman Chowk, where he was hanged on 24 March 1931.
The participants holding banners and placards in his memory distributed pamphlets containing a short biography of Bhagat Singh among the citizens.
Later, a ceremony was held in which senior participants of the gathering cut a cake to mark the 107th birthday of the socialist.
Farooq Tariq, Shazeea Khan, Yousaf Baloch, Rana Aslam, Bashir Zafar, Irfan Comrade, Sher Ali Haider, and Zahid Pervez from the AWP; Abdul Rehman, Irfan Chaudhry, Muhammad Shahzad, Comrade Qasim, Usman Anwer, Ammar Aziz, Maham Hameed and Saira Anwer from the NSF; Saeeda Dheep from the IPPS; and Shahida Jabeen from the PPP participated in the event to pay special tributes to Bhagat Singh.
Poets including Baba Najmi, Raheel Mirza and Arif Mahi were also present on the occasion.
A candlelight vigil was arranged on the occasion to remember Bhagat Singh’s exemplary contributions for the oppressed. The speakers paying tributes to Singh said he was the hero of the people of the Indian Subcontinent who struggled against the British to free the lands from the foreign occupants.
While addressing a ceremony, speakers also pledged to carry on the struggle against the oppression and imperialism to realise Singh’s dream.
Bhagat Singh was born on September 28, 1907 in the Khatkar Kalan village near Banga village, in Jaranwala tehsil of then Lyallpur district (now Faisalabad).
On March 23, 1931, following his trial for involvement in the ‘Lahore conspiracy case’, the British government hanged him at Shadman Chowk.
Bhagat Singh’s followers and admirers want to change the name of Shadman Chowk to Bhagat Singh Chowk. However, the proposal is on hold due to a petition pending before the Lahore High Court, seeking reopening of cases against Bhagat Singh.
Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi of the Save Judiciary Committee had filed the petitions requesting for reopening the case of following which Bhagat Singh was hanged by the British after a sham trial for his involvement in the Lahore conspiracy case at the age of 23. The court has referred the case to another judge already hearing the identical petition seeking review of the case of Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed.
He had submitted that Bhagat Singh was a freedom fighter struggled for the independence of the Indian Subcontinent.
He had also submitted that later Bhagat Singh with his two companions – Subak Dio and Raj Jaral – was awarded death sentence. An appeal was also filed against the punishment before the Privy Council in London, which was dismissed, and he was hanged.