Ahead of 100 years of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation, Pakistan, on Friday paid tribute to the martyrs on the premises of Lahore High Court and demanded compensation from the British government to the families of all those killed and injured during the massacre. Also, they protested and raised slogans against the British government. “We passed two main resolutions. In one resolution we demanded from the British government heavy compensation to the families of the victims who were killed 100 years back and told the UK government that their regret is not enough for this genocide,” Abdul Rashid Qureshi, president of the foundation, told The Indian Express over the phone from Lahore. He practises law in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. “If British government is saying that Jallianwala Bagh is a shameful scar on British Indian history, why are they not apologising and paying compensation to the victims as they have already admitted their blunder?” “Jallianwala Bagh is an example of butcher brutality of the then British government in India but still the current government there is not ready to rectify it by paying compensation and seeking apology which can heal the wounds to some extent,” Qureshi said, adding that “our wounds are still fresh and we will not sit silently till justice is done to the victims”. “British government had hanged Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev in the murder case of Assistant Superintendent of Police John Saunders but the names of the martyrs were not there in the FIR registered in 1928 for the killing of Saunders,” Qureshi said. Talking about the second resolution, he said, “We have urged Pakistan government to launch postal stamps to commemorate the 100th year of Jallianwala Bagh tragedy and to rename Lahore Amritsar GT road as Jallianwala Bagh road.” The foundation also lit candles in memory of the martyrs.
