Pakistan Govt locks Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh Gurdwara in Lahore

On Tuesday, the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) of Pakistan shut down Gurdwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh in Lahore for worship, declaring that it’s a mosque. Pakistan’s ETPB, along with sure basic extremists, locked down the Gurdwara, infuriating the Sikh neighborhood within the neighbouring Islamic nation.

Evacuee Trust Property Board is a statutory physique underneath the Government of Pakistan that administers property left behind by Hindus and Sikhs who migrated to India in the course of the partition. It was fashioned in 1960 following the  Nehru-Liaqat Pact in 1950 and Pant Mirza Agreement in 1955.

According to the stories, the controversy over the existence of Gurdwara located in Lahore has been long-running now. Notably, a lot of devotees from the Sikh neighborhood attend the Gurdwara every day to recite the Guru Granth Sahib. The Gurdwara, which is positioned within the Shaheed Ganj Naloukha area, has a prolonged and tumultuous historical past and is believed to be a supply of friction between town’s Sikhs and Muslims.

The Gurdwara was constructed within the place the place Sikh fighter Bhai Taru Singh was executed in 1745 by the Mughals. The Gurdwara was constructed on the grounds the place the Shaheed Ganj Mosque existed earlier. This has led to the dispute that continues even as we speak. While the Gurdwara was inbuilt 1747, the mosque additionally remained in place for a very long time, whereas the dispute between Muslims and Sikhs had been heard by courts underneath British rule. But the mosque was demolished by a bunch of Sikhs in 1935, which led to communal riots.

The gurdwara is positioned simply outdoors the partitions of Lahore, in a locality often known as Nalaukha, which is claimed to have beforehand hosted Prince Dara Shikoh’s famend palace. According to the report, Shikoh served as governor of Lahore earlier than being assassinated by his youthful brother, Aurangzeb.

The Sikhs maintain that underneath the directions of Mir Mannu, the governor of Lahore and a consultant of the Mughal Empire, lots of of 1000’s of harmless males, ladies, and youngsters from the neighborhood had been massacred at this location.

The Sikhs allege that Mir Mannu personally licensed them to construct a gurdwara right here after they promised to help him within the conquering of Multan on the request of Diwan Kaura Mal, who was afterward granted command of Multan by Mir Mannu, in keeping with the story. Muslims, however, declare that after the Mughal Empire fell, the Sikhs forcibly took over the mosque, which was nonetheless operational. It is notable that After the autumn of the Mughal empire, the Sikh empire was established in Punjab.

This isn’t the primary time Pakistan has closed down a Gurdwara and declared it an Islamic place of worship.  The same occasion occurred two years in the past when a significant Gurdwara was designated as a mosque, forcing Indian officers to intercede and file a protest within the matter. India had beforehand maintained that the Gurdwara is a web site of devotion, and the Sikh neighborhood regards it as ‘sacred.’