Faridabad, Saturday, January 09, 2010: Tucked in a small bylane of NH 5 in NIT, Faridabad is Gurdwara Shahidane Gujrat Train which has an history and heritage every Indian needs to know and be proud of. This Gurdwara came into being in 1956 when the area around it was allotted by the then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru to the families who had come from Bannu District in Pakistan. These families had seen terror and cruelty up close and front while trying to come out of Pakistan.

Their journey had begun on 10 January 1948 from Bannu Station in Pakistan in a train that was carrying 3600 Sikhs and Hindus, of affluent families, from Bannu area and Waziristan and also had 60 Gorkhas of Indian army to protect the train. The train journey proceeded upto Gujarat Station without any incidents where it reached on 12 January. Under a pre-arranged deceit the train was taken out a few kilometers of the station and was parked in an area which had trenches on both the sides and tribesmen (kabaliye) were already positioned in the trenches. Then started a game of terror started for the train occupants, men, women and children, with tribals shooting at the train from the trenches. The Gurkhas shot back from the train and tried every trick to save the passengers but the train staff and the tribals were in collusion and the train did not move an inch for many hours.

And while all this was going on a small kid of 5 years, Surender Singh, was wondering what was happening around him. He got shot in the hand, in near his eye and his face near the lips. His young brother who was just 2 and half got shot in the stomach and his parents were carrying bullet wounds just like many others around him.

Surender Singh is 67 years old and is part of the managing committee of the Gurdwara. He told us that only when the leaflets thrown from a plane, many hours after the shooting started, stating “If you will massacre one train going out of Pakistan, you will receive two.” did the tribal give up. While going away they took away the girls and gold ornaments or anything valuable from the dead and alive.

Dunichand, also a 5 year old in the train, got shot in the leg and also lost his sister in that massacre. The sister was sold to a sikh family, who bought her to bring her to India, by the tribals. Dunichand, also a managing committee member of the Gurdwara, met his sister, sho now lives in New Delhi, later after many years.

That massacre outside Gujrat station killed 2600 people and the train filled with dead bodies, blood and flesh strewn about reached Amritsar several hours later.

Many of those families were later rehabitated at Faridabad in NH 5 in 1956 and they got together to build this beautiful Gurdwara as a tribute to all those who got killed at the Gujarat Station. And on every 12 January the Gurdwara holds Martyrs Day as a mark of respect for all the Martyrs who died for India.

This year the function will start from January 10 and go on till January 12th with devotees and members of the families who were on that train that day, travelling from faraway places to attend it. And in case you visit the Gurdwara during the next few days you can meet Surender Singh and Dunichand and many like them, talk to them and revisit that part of the Indian history when a  trainload of Hindus and Sikhs was massacred at Gujrat station.

Tags: Faridabad, NH5, nl01, religion

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