Three-day Baisakhi festival kicks off

Religious event being celebrated to mark beginning of Sikh New Year

HASSAN ABDAL:

The three-day religious festival of the Sikh community ‘Baisakhi Mela’ started at Gurudwara Sri Panja Sahib in Hassan Abdal on Wednesday.

Over 2,100 Sikh pilgrims from India reached Hassanabdal by special trains through Wagah Border on Tuesday to participate in the festival. The Evacuee Trust Property Board and the Pakistan Gurdwara Committee have renovated and illuminated the main building in the city.

Similarly, the local administration has arranged lodging facilities for the pilgrims at nearby schools which have already been vacated. Most of the yatrees have come from tribal areas, Peshawar, Swat, Tando Adam, Larkana, Sukkur, Badin, Umar Kot, Karachi and Lahore. A sizable number of pilgrims also arrived here from other parts of the world, especially the Gulf countries.

Baisakhi Festival is celebrated in April to mark the beginning of the Sikh New Year, with festivities centered on the Panja Sahib complex in Hassanabdal.

Ravinder Singh Khalsa–the largest Indian Sikhs representative body known as Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and the leader of the Sikh pilgrims’ group told the media that the Sikh pilgrims always bring messages of peace, friendship and harmony to Pakistan and receive a very friendly response from the people. “Pakistan is the land of Sikh Gurus, so Sikhs love this land that promotes Sikh-Muslim friendship.

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He said Indian Sikhs take the message of love, peace and friendship back with them. There should be peace and more people-to-people contact between Pakistan and India, he added.

Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) Deputy Secretary Imran Gondal said that Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in collaboration with ETPB has made special arrangements for the boarding and lodging of the pilgrims.

He said the pilgrims had been housed in various rooms of Gurdwara and nearby schools, where free food was being provided to them, as well as lockers for safekeeping of their documents and valuables during their stay.

He said the Sikh yatrees would also visit other gurdwaras in the country and would return to their homes on April 21.

Attock District Police Officer Rana Shoaib Mahmood said that elaborate security measures had been adopted to avert any untoward incident. He said that six DSPs, 13 inspectors, 133 sub-inspectors and ASI, 42 head constables, 680 constables and 36 lady constables have been deployed to provide foolproof security to the visiting Sikh pilgrims.

Commissioner Rawalpindi division Noorul Ameen Mangal visited Gurdwara Punja Sahib and review the boarding and lodging arrangements. He also interacted with the Indian Sikh pilgrims who apprised him about their sentiments of pilgrimage to their holy places.

Pilgrim dies of heart attack

A visiting Indian Sikh died of cardiac arrest on his journey towards Hassanabdal in the special pilgrimage train in the early hours of Wednesday.

According to sources, Nashabar Singh was on board in the second pilgrimage train when he complained of pain in the chest. A medic who was accompanying the pilgrimage train was called for treatment but the pilgrim died.

Officials of Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) said that arrangements are made through consultation of the Indian embassy in Islamabad for the repatriation of the body of the deceased Sikh pilgrim through Wagha border.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2022.