Hopes fade for the Rising Hope School for Sikhs

With no government official paying heed to request for a new building, the school is on the verge of closure

PESHAWAR: The fate of Peshawar’s only school catering to the Sikh community is in jeopardy as the landlord of the building has sold the property and wants it vacated.

The Rising Hope School – which has 300 pupils, 80% of whom belong to the Sikh community while the rest are Hindus and Muslims – is on the verge of closure as no government official has so far paid any heed to their plea for provision of an alternate building, despite repeated requests over several months.

A 50-member delegation led by Babaji Guru Gurpal Singh and Coordinator to K-P Chief Minister Ravi Kumar had gone to Bani Gala on Thursday to present an application to PTI Chairman Imran Khan. However, according to them, the PTI chief refused to meet them.



Singh said they had also tried to meet CM Pervez Khattak, but there was no response from him either.

“I wonder how education is this government’s top priority when Imran Khan and Pervez Khattak didn’t even meet us to hear our request,” lamented Gurpal Singh, while talking to The Express Tribune. “We have been struggling for two months but to no avail,” he added.

The school which is situated inside the Mohallah Jogan Shah, historically a Sikh dwelling in the city, has 300 students. Most of these students are those who fled from the tribal area due to militancy.



“Rising Hope School is the only hope for children from Sikh and Hindu communities,” said Singh, adding, “We started this community school three years back when a huge number of Sikh families from the tribal belt shifted here.”

Sharing the demographics of the school, he said it has nearly 80% Sikh students and the remaining are Hindu and Muslims.

Peshawar’s Sikh locality Mohallah Jogan Shah has a total of 10,000 people from the community living in traditional havelis as old as hundred years. The population of the locality increased after spike in militancy in the tribal belt.

“There are a number of buildings lying vacant in the area and the school should either be transferred to one of these buildings or some other piece of land should be allotted for the school,” Singh appealed.

The Sikh elder also informed The Express Tribune that the Rising Hope School is the country’s second Sikh-run school, after the community’s school Nankana Sahib.

He raised questions over utilisation of the funds allocated for the welfare of the minorities, adding that he had submitted an application, under the right to information act, to seek details of the funds. “We ask the CM to allocate some amount from these funds for the school,” he requested.

Director of the school, Harbdyal Singh, who works as volunteer, stressed the ‘pressing’ need for such a community school, especially after the shifting of tribal families there. He said half of the students were being sponsored by the people of the city.



Harbdyal said that last year, the number of students was 115 but this year, it had increased to 300 – a number difficult to be accommodated in the building.

He added that the K-P government had provided scholarship for 115 students, besides announcing that vocational training would be provided for children and women who had migrated from Fata.

The director lamented, “We have changed the building three times in the last three years. If we keep changing building again and again, it would disturb the students.”