Shaheed Yadgaar Yatra : June 18, 2019 to March 23, 2020
Bihar’s residents Sohan Lal Azad on Shaheed Yadgaar Yatra on cycle gets warm welcome at Ferozepur
Ferozepur July 18, 2019: Sohan Lal Azad, hailing from Sakra, Toli, Mujaffarpur (Bihar) who is on a cycle tour to pay tributes to the martyrs by visiting their places, started his journey on June 18, 2019.
During his journey, he will visit Patna, Allahabad, Delhim Amritsar, Katak, Midnapur and other martyrs places and culminate his journey on March 23, 2020 on the martyrdom day of Shaheed Bhagat Singh at his native place.
Today, he was in Ferozepur to pay tributes to Shaheed Bhagat Singh at Hussainiwala. He is moving all alone all the way with passion to pay rich tributes to the martyrs all over the country. In this part of the country, Sohan Lal Azad had planned to visit the memorials or birth places of Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Kartar Singh Sarabha and others.
Speaking to Babushahi.com, Sohan Lal Azad started with Jai Hind and ended his talk with Jai Hind. He shared his views and experiences of life. Sohan Lal is so simple in dress but high in thoughts. He is keeping an ordinary cycle for such a long journey with national flag on the front. The identity car issued by the Mujjafarpur district administration have very clear instructions – for giving due respect to the national flag for hoisting and lowering in the evening, can even travel on foot also, the other means of transportation can also be used, the journey can be terminated even before the fixed date, because of certain circumstances, the long rest can be taken, signature of people where staying are necessary in the log book maintained by him, there can be any change in special circumstances in the journey.
Like the old timers, Sohan Lal Azad also suffixed his academic qualification as BA with his name. He has dedicated his life to the students and give them coaching at his native place. He has great respect for the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives to get freedom for India. He has so far travelled 1600 kms and people throughout his journey has cooperated with him and provided him food and other required assistance.
Excerpts from talk with him - The people in every religion have their own God but I treat the martyrs as my God as independence to us is because of their sacrifices. We are now independent and we have our own Constitution.
In the battle of independence, the people of all religious sacrificed their lives
Long back, I had been paying tributes to the martyrs. Earlier I started to travel on cycle on April 8, 1992 on the martyrdom day of Mangal Pandey and covered Patna, Allahabad, Banaras, Kanpur, Jhansi, Gwalior, Agra, Mathura, Delhi and Amritsar.
Now after 27 years, I decided to visit the remaining places of martyrs and on reaching Amritsar I visited Jallianwala Bagh and Khat Khat Kalan and came to know that the Bhagat Singh Memorial is at Hussainiwala in Ferozepur and then I decided to pay tribute to Bhagat Singh and Punjab Mata also.
On way, he has been given a warm welcome by everyone and I am maintaining a daily diary.
Today, when I was coming back from Hussainiwala after paying tributes to Shaheed Bhagat Singh, few people – Sarbajeet Singh and others met me at Bare ke and gave me a warm welcome.
Now I will proceed to the birthplace of Lala Lajpat Rai at Dhudi Ke near Moga and then proceed to Sunam, the birthplace of Shaheed Udham Singh who took revenge for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. I will also visit the place of Kartar Singh Sarabaha another revolutionary of independence and mentor of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. After that, I will proceeding to Delhi and plan further programme.
I will culminate my cycle journey on March 23, 2020 – the martyrdom day of Shaheed Bhagat Singh at his native place. I will suspend my journey for two months because of rainy and flood days and then I have to proceed to Karnatka and Bengal.
Talking about Punjab, he said, I have liked Punjab. I have seen harmony among the people; no discrimination and Punjabis are courteous to the visitors like me.
Everyone has shortcoming, but I don’t look for the weaknesses but give attention to the 95 per cent perfection among the people as 5 per cent are negligible.
Giving a message to the people of India, he said, one should keep the capability of duties and tolerance as well only then we can move forward.
He thanked Baldev Singh Hussainiwala teacher and Narinder Singh for giving me a honour on the way of my journey and these will be memorable moments for me.