LAHORE (The Thursday Times) — A historic gurdwara on Lahore’s Temple Road that had been shut since the Partition of 1947 has reopened for worship after a full restoration, ending 79 years of closure.
The Gurdwara Chhevin Patshahi Sri Guru Hargobind Sahib in Mozang, named for Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh guru, was reopened on Sunday at a ceremony held according to Sikh religious tradition. It was organised jointly by the Evacuee Trust Property Board, which manages the properties left by Hindus and Sikhs who migrated to India at Partition, the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and the Punjab government.
Members of the Sikh community attended along with Ramesh Singh Arora, the Punjab minister for minorities and president of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, ETPB Secretary Nasir Mushtaq, Deputy Secretary (Shrines) Usman Khan and Deputy Secretary General Saadat Shehbaz.
Speaking at the ceremony, Arora said restoration and renovation work was under way at more than 50 gurdwaras across Pakistan, and credited the effort to the vision of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. Office-bearers of the committee thanked the government for restoring the building and called its reopening a positive step for the Sikh community.
Pakistan is home to many of Sikhism’s holiest sites, including Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, and Kartarpur, where he spent his last years. Thousands of Sikh pilgrims travel from India and abroad each year for the main festivals, the next of which, Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary, falls later this month.
