Ludhiana: After years of neglect, martyr Sukhdev Thapar’s ancestral home finally gets long overdue attention

While Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Jagat Prakash Nadda will carry out a march from the party’s office at Clock Tower to Naughara to pay tribute to the martyr on Saturday, chief minister (CM) Bhagwant Mann is expected to visit the house on Sunday on the occasion of Sukhdev’s 115th birth anniversary

After many years of neglect, martyr Sukhdev Thapar’s ancestral home in Naughara is set to welcome high-profile guests over the weekend.

Ahead of the visit of the dignitaries, hectic activity was witnessed in the locality of martyr Sukhdev Thapar’s ancestral home as PSPCL employees were seen replacing dangling power cables with new ones. (HT File)

While Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Jagat Prakash Nadda will carry out a march from the party’s office at Clock Tower to Naughara to pay tribute to the martyr on Saturday, chief minister (CM) Bhagwant Mann is expected to visit the house on Sunday on the occasion of Sukhdev’s 115th birth anniversary.

Sukhdev was born on May 15, 1907, and spent his childhood at the house in Naughara, which is now a busy wholesale hosiery market.

Ahead of the visit of the dignitaries, hectic activity was witnessed in the locality as PSPCL employees were seen replacing dangling power cables with new ones.

MC staff was laying concrete on the 2,500 square yard courtyard outside the martyr’s house and street lights were also being installed at the last minute. The yellow coating of plaster of Paris at the ancestral house was also being removed.

Thapar’s kin have been raising a hue and cry for the past many months over the slow pace of the work to provide a direct approach road to the house and remove encroachments from and beautify its surroundings.

“I wish that Nadda and Bhagwant Mann visited the house every year as it has been utterly neglected for decades,” said Tribhuvan Thapar, a member of the Sukhdev Thapar Memorial Trust.

He said that in 2018, the then chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh had announced ₹1 crore for the renovation of the house, but nothing has been done at the ground level as of now.

Recently, the members of the trust went on a relay hunger strike for eight days over the delay in the revamp of the house. The protest finally ended after MLAs Ashok Prashar Pappi, Madan Lal Bagga and Gurpreet Singh Gogi assured them that all their demands will be met.

Last year, the birth anniversary celebrations of Sukhdev Thapar remained muted amid Covid restrictions and the house remained locked.