Lahore, Nov 12 (PTI) A non-profit foundation in Lahore on Tuesday slammed the government for scrapping a plan to rename Shadman Chowk after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and install his statue there on the recommendation of a retired Pakistani military official.
The Metropolitan Corporation of Lahore on Friday in a reply to a contempt petition filed by Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation Pakistan Chairman Imtiaz Rasheed Qureshi in the Lahore High Court said that a proposed plan to name Shadman Chowk after Bhagat Singh and place his statue there has been scrapped in light of an observation submitted by Commodore (retd.) Tariq Majeed.
It said that Majeed, engaged by the government in a committee to rename Shadman Chowk after Singh, in his observations claimed that Singh "was not a revolutionary but a criminal, in today’s terms he was a terrorist, he killed a British police officer, and for this crime, he was hanged along with two accomplices."
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, the foundation chairman Qureshi said Majeed should remember the speech of Pakistan's founder M A Jinnah for the praise of revolutionary Bhagat Singh in the Central Assembly before calling him a "criminal and terrorist".
"Jinnah not only praised the sacrificial personality of Bhagat Singh and his comrades but also stood in their support with the strongest possible intention and questioned British law and order and principles," Qureshi said.
"We cannot deny the fact that the sacrifices of the revolutionaries in the freedom movement gave a tough challenge to British rule, among whom the whole world knows the name of Bhagat Singh, born in today's Pakistan, and considers his ideas important for the welfare of humanity," Qureshi said.
He termed the government report about Singh "ridiculous, a tampering with history" and presented the Islamic point of view in a distorted manner.
"Bhagat Singh is a revolutionary son born on the soil of Pakistan and we cannot let the history of our country be destroyed for pseudo-political purposes," he said.
"Here it also becomes clear that in reality the view that the colonial British government once had about Bhagat Singh, is almost the same view that the representatives of the current Punjab government of Maryam Nawaz are holding that he was a criminal, murderer, terrorist," he said.
Qureshi also said his organisation is open to any government scrutiny on allegations of foreign funding.