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Ludhiana’s Halwara airport to be named after Kartar Singh Sarabha
The under-construction international airport at Halwara is likely to be operational by next year; Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann announced that it will be renamed after freedom fighter Kartar Singh Sarabha
With the under-construction international airport at Halwara likely to be operational by next year, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday announced that the airport will be renamed after freedom fighter and martyr Kartar Singh Sarabha.
Mann made the announcement during his visit to the city to inaugurate the newly-built Verka milk processing and butter plant.
Speaking on the occasion, Mann said, “We have been successful in renaming the airport at Mohali as Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport. In similar fashion, the upcoming airport will be named after Kartar Singh Sarabha.”
Highlighting Sarabha’s role in the freedom struggle, he added, “They shed blood for us and died fighting with the British so that we can see this day. Keeping their legacy alive is the least we can do.”
Residents of the martyr’s eponymous and ancestral Sarabha village have long been demanding that the airport in the area be named after the martyr.
Executed by the British at the young age of 19, Sarabha had inspired freedom fighter Bhagat Singh — who hailed him as his hero.
The freedom fighter who inspired Bhagat Singh
Born in 1896 in the eponymous village, Sarabha found his calling in the fight for India’s independence from the British Raj at a very young age. He joined the revolutionary Ghadar party and during his time in California, where he was studying, was assigned the task of producing the party mouthpiece Gadar in Punjabi language.
After the breakout of World War I, the Gadarites returned to India in a bid to mobilise more people and Kartar Singh travelled with his fellow revolutionaries. He, however, was arrested by the British and sent to the gallows.
Kartar Singh Sarabha refused a counsel during his trial and was pronounced “the most dangerous of all rebels” before being sentenced to death. On 16 November 1915, Kartar Singh Sarabha walked to the gallows with a smile on his face singing patriotic songs that he had himself composed. He was sentenced to death and hanged in 1916.
