SANGHAR: Sooriha Badshah remembered
SANGHAR, March 20: Speakers here at a seminar on Saturday paid tributes to Pir Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi commonly known in Sindh as Shaheed Sooriha Badshah.
The seminar organized at the PSSS government boys college highlighted the role of media when the Hur movement was going in Sindh.
Pir Sibghatuallah Shah was hanged on March 20, 1943 in the central jail Hyderabad after a general court martial declared him guilty of waging a war against the British empire.
The seminar was attended by a large number of people including historians, politicians, veterans of the Hur movement who had fought guerrilla war during 1942-43.
Speaking on the occasion, Ghulam Nabi Agro said it was Sooriha Padshah who fought against the foreign rulers after Dodo Soomro, Doolah Darya Khan and Makhdoom Bilawal.
He demanded that the Sindh Textbook Board should include a chapter in the syllabus of history about Sooriha Badhshah.
MNA Khuda Bux Nizamani said the Pir had started struggle when he was nearly 11-year-old in 1921.
He said he was arrested and sent to a jail in Bengal where he remained in confinement from 1930 to 1938. After his release he continued the struggle against the Raj, he added.
He said Sooriha Badshah was again arrested in 1942 and hanged at the age of 33 years.
Mr Nizamani said hundreds of Hur fighters were hanged without trial and thousands of others incarcerated or thrown in the dungeons.
He said the families of the Hur freedom fighters were confined in concentration camps in different towns where they remained for years.
Their properties were confiscated and houses burnt or demolished but the Hurs fought against the imperialists till 1947.
Dr Nazar Shar, Prof Umer Chand, former MPA Waryam Faqir, Murtaza Siyal and others also spoke on the occasion.