Metropolitan Corporation Lahore opposes naming a roundabout in Lahore after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh | India News – Times of India

BATINDA: The Metropolitan Corporation Lahore subsequently opposed the renaming of a roundabout in Lahore freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and has recommended to the Lahore High Court to dismiss the contempt petition regarding the naming of a roundabout. The company’s recommendation was made with reference to a brief note prepared in 2018 by a retired commodore Tariq Majeed, who had strongly opposed the naming of Fowara Chowk Shadman as Bhagat Singh chowk. Majeed had even stated that Bhagat Singh played no role in the subcontinent’s freedom struggle and that he was not a revolutionary but a criminal – a terrorist in today’s terms – when he killed a British police officer.
The court of Judge Shams Mehmood Mirza of the Lahore High Court adjourned the case to January 17, 2025.
The Lahore-based chairman of Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation, Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi, had filed a contempt of court application in the Lahore High Court on March 1, 2024 under Article 204 of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 read with sections ¾ of the Contempt of Court Act, 2003. , against the Chief Secretary to the Government of Punjab, Zahid Akhtar Zaman, Deputy Commissioner Rafia Haider and the City District Administrator, for not naming roundabout in the city of Lahore after Bhagat Singh.
In a written response filed in the court on November 8 by Assistant Solicitor General Asghar Leghari, comments made by Commodore Tariq Majeed stated that it is wrong to declare Bhagat Singh a great revolutionary, freedom fighter and martyr as the Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation has imitated the naming of the chowk through fake propaganda. It has also been mentioned that the NGO Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation is against Islamic ideology and Pakistani culture, it should be banned and an inquiry should be made as to where it gets money for its activities, who supports it inside and outside Pakistan. Security services must investigate their officials.
An earlier bench of the Lahore High Court headed by Justice Shahid Jamil Khan had disposed of the petition on September 5, 2018 and in its order asked the authorities to decide on Qureshi’s prayer for the naming Shadman chowk as Bhagat Singh, in strict accordance with the law. The court had mentioned that the same complaint was raised through petition 28446 of 2012, which was dismissed as it bore fruit on the respondents’ undertaking that any petition, if moved, would be dealt with in accordance with law.
A roundabout called Shadman Chowk had come up at a place where Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged to death on March 23, 1931, as the place was then part of the Central Jail Lahore, Qureshi had stated in the petition.