TOBA TEK SINGH: A trader of Faisalabad and local leader of the PML-N has sought an apology for giving a statement against the restoration of the historical Gurdwara Singh Sabha and issued an apology in a video message on his earlier statement.

Supreme Anjuman Tajiran chairman Amin Butt had opposed the proposal to restore the gurdwara in Rail Bazaar that is currently used by the Government Pakistan Model High School.

In the new video of Butt also shared by Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee the other day, he offers an apology for his offensive remarks against the Sikh community.

“I am Amin Butt, the chairman of the Supreme Anjuman Tajiran, the biggest organisation of the traders of Faisalabad. Some days back, I had given a statement against the Sikh community and gurdwara which was unfair. I committed a mistake. That’s why I offer an apology to the Sikh community. The whole Supreme Anjuman Tajiran also offers an apology. We promise you that we would not give any such statement in the future,” he says in his video message.

The building Gurdwara Singh Sabha was built in 1911 by Sikhs and remained their worship place until the Partition after which the government established the school in it. All 40 rooms built by the Sikhs for the temporary stay of pilgrims of this gurdwara are now being used as classrooms.

Sources said Sikhs residing in Canada and other countries had desired to restore the place through the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) to be supervised by the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.

The proposal was under discussion between the district administration and the school education department after relocating the school somewhere else or merging it with a nearby government school. In this regard, on April 27, provincial ministers of school education and minority affairs Rana Sikandar Hayat and Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora visited the school. Mr Arora said that the Gurdwara is a heritage of the Sikhs which would be restored. He said the Sikh community is patriotic and playing their due role in the development and prosperity of Pakistan. He said further maintenance work should be done on the beautiful building of the school and they have come here with the message of peace of Baba Guru Nanak.

Since the visit of both ministers, a movement was suddenly announced by former Faisalabad deputy mayor and trader leader Amin Butt to oppose the proposal. He launched a protest with the support of parents of the school students and shopkeepers having their shops in the bazaars and markets adjacent to the school. After this movement, the plan had reportedly been cancelled, according to some reports.

When contacted, Faisalabad District Education Authority CEO Kashif Zia claimed that no decision had been made to restore the Gurdwara or to relocate or merge this school into another school. He said Lyallpur Museum had already been tasked to preserve the heritage of the Sikh community’s Gurdwara in one or two rooms of the same school building.

Mr Butt, however, was aggressive when earlier contacted by this correspondent. He claimed that after pressure from his movement, the plan had been cancelled and he had shown his consent to make a hall in the building where pictures of the Gurdwara and Sikh leaders and their inauguration stones would be preserved. He said he was not alone in his movement but more than 500 labourers who pack cloth into bundles by small pressing machines (they temporarily sit outside school walls) and hundreds of small shopkeepers were also behind him as the administration had planned to build gates outside the bazaars for the security at the time of entry of pilgrims after relocating this school. As a result, all of the labourers and shopkeepers would have been deprived of their earnings.

He claimed that he was surprised at whom it was being pleased by restoring this Gurdwara as not a single Sikh resided in Faisalabad. The elected body of the district council under the chairmanship of former MPA Chaudhry Zahid Nazir had also decided in 2019 to renovate the Gurdwara building and to establish a museum in the school but after the abolition of local councils, the decision could not be implemented.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2024