BSF to shift Bhagat Singh s pistol to Punjab museum

Chandigarh May 22 (IANS) The Border Security Force (BSF) will soon move a pistol used by Indian freedom struggle hero Bhagat Singh to a museum in Punjab s frontier district of Ferozepur.

The Colt .32 automatic pistol was used by the freedom fighter to kill British police officer John Saunders on December 17 1928.

The move to shift the pistol was disclosed by a BSF officer to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition filed by a lawyer.

BSF Deputy Inspector General Arun Kumar Tambe told the high court that ther pistol which is presently kept at the BSF museum in Indore (Madhya Pradesh) will soon be shifted to the museum at the Hussainwala border in Punjab s Ferozepore.

Tambe told the court that the New Delhi-based BSF headquarters had on April 25 issued orders to move the historic pistol to Punjab.

Freedom fighters Bhagat Singh Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated at Hussainwala along the present India-Pakistan border where a memorial for them is located.

Chandigarh lawyer H.C. Arora had filed the PIL seeking that the pistol be shifted to the museum in Khatkar Kalan about 75 km from here the ancestral village of Bhagat Singh s mother.

--IANS
js/vd