Tributes paid to Beant Singh, his assassin too

AMRITSAR: The city on Friday witnessed tribute-paying ceremonies for both former chief minister Beant Singh and Dilawar Singh, the human bomb who assassinated him on August 31, 1995.

Marking the 23rd death anniversary of the ex-cm, Congress leaders, led by education minister Om Parkash Soni, gathered at the Beant Singh Park at the Ranjit Avenue, where they garlanded his statue.

They remembered him for sacrificing his life for peace and harmony in the militancy-hit Punjab of those days.

Congress MLA (Amritsarnorth) Sunil Dutti, District Congress Committee (urban) president Jugal Kishore Sharma and local leader Ashwani Kumar paid their homage to Beant Singh, who is known for reining in militancy in the state in mid-90s.

On the other hand, the bhog ceremony of akhand path was held at the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, in the morning to observe death anniversary of Dilawar, a copturned-militant, who had blasted himself to kill Beant Singh outside the Punjab civil secretariat at Chandigarh in 1995. It was followed by ‘gurbani kirtan’.

However, Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh, who had declared the Dilawar as ‘qaumi shahid’ (martyr of the community) in 2012, skipped the ceremony.

The cop-turned militant was hailed as ‘great martyr’ of the community during the ceremony by radical Sikh leaders belonging to the Dal Khalsa, Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), Damdami Taksal, All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) and Akhand Kirtani Jatha.

On behalf of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), Jaswinder Singh Deenpur, manager of Sri Harmandar Sahib (Golden Temple) attended the ceremony. The family members of Dilwar Singh were honoured with ‘siropas’ (robes of honour) after the ceremony.

A message by Jagtar Singh Hawara, a convict in the Beant Singh assassination case who is currently serving life sentence in Tihar jail, Delhi, was read out by Gurcharan Singh Patiala. He also read the message of Pakistanbased Babbar Khalsa chief Wadhawa Singh Babbar, who had taken up the responsibility of assassination of the former CM.

Another function was organised at Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj in the Railway Colony to pay tributes to Dilawar.

‘DIVISIVE FORCES TRYING TO RAISE THEIR HEAD AGAIN IN PUNJAB’

CHANDIGARH: Paying homage to former chief minister Beant Singh on his 23rd death anniversary on Friday, his grandson and Congress MLA Gurkirat Singh Kotli said the divisive forces are once again trying to disrupt the secular fabric of Punjab by supporting Referendum 2020 and spreading narcoterrorism.

“But the people of Punjab will not let these divisive forces to succeed in their nefarious designs,” he said while speaking at a statelevel event at the Beant Singh memorial here held to pay tributes to the ex-cm.

He said Beant Singh worked tirelessly for restoration of peace and communal harmony in the state.

“We will follow his footsteps and will purge the state from the drug menace.”

Former Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and Punjab cabinet ministers Navjot Singh Sidhu, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Vijay Inder Singla and Bharat Bhushan Ashu also paid their tributes to Beant Singh, who was assassinated on August 31, 1995.

They recalled his role in restoring peace to the troubletorn Punjab during the turbulent period of militancy.

An all-religion prayer meeting was also held on this occasion.

THE STUDENTS HAS BEEN REFERRED TO PGIMER IN CHANDIGARH, WITH CRITICAL INJURIES