Tiger Hill martyr’s legacy awaits gate

BANBHAURA (MALERKOTLA): Twenty-five years after Naik Bahadur Singh laid down his life during the Kargil War, his family awaits a gate in his memory to their village, Banbhaura, in Malerkotla district of Punjab. For the family, the memorial will be an assurance that Naik Bahadur’s name won’t be forgotten.
Naik Bahadur, 30, achieved martyrdom on May 26, 1999, on Tiger Hill in Drass.He was unmarried and had five brothers and two sisters.

Sitting on a charpoy at his house, 65-yearold Balvir Singh, elder brother of the matyr and former power board employee, said after the martyrdom, many leaders, including former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra, came to their village and Badal assured a memorial will be built in the name of his brother.
He added as govts kept on changing, the memorial never came up. However, the local govt senior school has been after Naik Bahadur. “We believe that people will forget the sacrifice of my brother if memorial gate doesn’t come up in his name in the village.
Already, most children born later don’t know much about him. We also believe martyrs are not of families, but of the nation. Many times, we have raised this issue with the agencies concerned. Even the panchayat has earmarked land for it,” said his elder brother.
“Now we have given up. We request the govt to get it constructed.” A former sarpanch of the village, Sukhdeep Singh Goldy, said the panchayat had already selected a piece land for the construction of the memorial gate.
He added they had raised the issue with the authorities concerned (the BDPO), but they were told to spend money from panchayat fund.
The former sarpanch said the panchayat had just Rs 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh, of which it had to pay salaries as well, so it could not construct the gate, for which around Rs 10 lakh was needed.
He added that besides the gate, they could even get a statue in the memory of the martyr constructed near the Gate. Naik Bahadur said their parents had died before his brother was martyred.
He added his brother had studied till Class X at the govt senior secondary school in the village and had joined Army as a sepoy at the age of 18.
The family said Naik Bahadur was first posted in Sikkim, and then served in many places like Pathankot, Jammu and Srinagar. It added even as family and relatives insisted Bahadur should get married, he would say he would tell them when he would want to get married.