Anna, Manpreet Badal pay tributes to Bhagat Singh

Tribune News Service

Khatkar Kalan, March 23

Activist and anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare and People’s Party of Punjab president Manpreet Singh Badal paid tributes to Bhagat Singh on the on the revolutionary leader’s 84th death anniversary on Monday.

(See video: Anna Hazare pays tribute on ‘Shahid Diwas’)

The activist, who had arrived at the village in Punjab’s Nawanshahr district early on Monday to pay tributes to the martyred leader, became teary as he  gazed at a photo from Bhagat Singh’s childhood.

Talking to reporters after paying tributes to Bhagat Singh, Hazare, who is in the state to rally support against the contentious amendments to the Land Acquisition Bill, 2013, said: “Par kuchh gaddar log bhool gaye hain. Jinhone desh ke liye kurbaani di, unhi ko bhool gaye (But some traitors have forgotten them. People who sacrificed their lives for the country have been forgotten).” The activist, however, refused to specify whom he was referring to.

Hazare also expressed his concerns over the drug abuse problem in the state that produced “martyrs like Bhagat Singh”.

Referring to present-day politicians, he said they only wanted power and money.

"Satta se paisa, paisa se satta. Iske peeche ghoom rahe hain bas (money from power and power from money. They are only running after that)," Hazare said.

However, Hazare was optimistic that some youth still remembered the sacrifices of the martyrs and followed their path.

"Some youth have gone astray but some youth still remember them," he said.

The activist also visited Harminder Sahib to pay obeisance. 

PPP seeks review of criminal case against Bhagat Singh

The People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) has called for the reopening of the criminal case of Bhagat Singh.

President Manpreet Singh Badal said he would move Punjab and Haryana High court seeking a review of the conviction of the martyr.

“It will be befitting not only to the people of India but also to the legacy of the greatest martyr of the Indian freedom struggle that this case is re-examined via due judicial process,” he said.

Citing examples of Joan of Arc of France and scientist Galileo, he said that history was fraught with examples in which the court verdict was reviewed and reversed several years after the death of the person.

Twenty-five years after she was burned at stake in 1431, Joan of Arc’s case was reopened and charges reversed. Likewise, Galileo — whose case the Pope John Paul called a miscarriage of justice in 1979 — was exonerate in 1993, 360 years after he was sentenced to death in 1632 for saying that the earth revolved around the sun.

“It is a tragedy that India’s greatest martyr is still regarded as a convict in court records,” he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and deputy CM Sukhbir Badal also came to Khatkar Kalan to pay their tributes to the martyrs.

Bhagat Singh was executed for the murder of a British Police officer, an assistant superintendent of police (ASP) called John Saunders in 1928. However, the FIR registered on December 17, 1928, at the Lahore’s Anarkali Chowk Police Station did not identify who killed Saunders.

The revolutionary, along with two other leaders — Sukhdev and Rajguru— was sentenced to death. Then Governor of Punjab had constituted a tribunal through an ordinance that was valid for four months, but the tribunal began its proceedings only six days prior to the lapse of its terms and barely recorded the testimony of 450 witnesses. It is also accused of not hearing Singh’s testimony impartially.

The three were hanged in the Lahore Jail on 23 March 1931. (With inputs from IANS)