The grave sit­u­a­tion in Pe­shawar re­cently prompted Baba Gur­pal Singh, a com­mu­nity rep­re­sen­ta­tive trac­ing his lin­eage to Guru Harkr­is­han Sahib and a mem­ber of the NWFP mi­nori­ties com­mis­sion, to high­light the com­mu­ni­ty’s plight in a meet­ing with the Pak­istani Army Corps Com­man­der Pe­shawar -Lieu­tenant Gen­eral Sar­dar Has­san Azhar Hayat. The fact that the Sikh com­mu­nity had to vo­cal­ize their strug­gle so pub­licly un­der­scores the sever­ity of their predica­ment and the im­per­a­tive for gov­ern­ment ac­tion. Ex­clu­sive WSN Re­port.

In Pe­shawar, the his­toric heart­land of the Sikh com­mu­nity, a cri­sis looms as the Sikh pop­u­la­tion dwin­dles and vi­tal re­li­gious sites de­te­ri­o­rate. The Sikh com­mu­nity, with roots deeply em­bed­ded in Pe­shawar’s cul­tural ta­pes­try and those who have sought refuge from other parts of Pak­istan and Afghanistan, are call­ing upon the gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the se­vere chal­lenges they face.

Se­cu­rity con­cerns have com­pelled over 100 Sikh fam­i­lies to mi­grate from Pe­shawar to Pun­jab, re­duc­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s num­ber from an es­ti­mated 20,000 be­fore 2015 to merely 2,000 to­day. This mass dis­place­ment speaks to the ur­gent need for in­ter­ven­tion.

Gur­d­waras, the epi­cen­ter of the Sikh faith, stand in dis­re­pair. The Gur­d­wara Bhai Joga Singh, a three-cen­tury-old sanc­tu­ary es­tab­lished by Hari Singh Nalwa, the leg­endary gen­eral of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh, has suf­fered struc­tural dam­age since the 2005 earth­quake. Its dam­aged dome and cracked walls threaten not only the his­tor­i­cal site but also the sur­round­ing res­i­den­tial ar­eas. De­spite re­peated ap­peals to the au­thor­i­ties, the com­mu­ni­ty’s calls for restora­tion have been met with si­lence.

Gur­d­wara Bhai Biba Singh in Hasht­na­gri, con­verted into a school post-par­ti­tion and then into a vo­ca­tional train­ing cen­ter, now lies aban­doned due to its di­lap­i­dated state. Even af­ter its re­turn to the Sikh com­mu­nity in 2016, dis­putes and gov­ern­men­tal de­lays have hin­dered its re­con­struc­tion.

In­fra­struc­ture woes ex­tend be­yond the Gur­d­waras. The road lead­ing to the cre­ma­tion site near At­tock Bridge is in a state of dis­re­pair, com­pli­cat­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s fu­ner­ary rites. More­over, con­cerns have been raised over the safety of the pro­posed new cre­ma­tion site in Mera Ka­chori, prompt­ing re­quests for re­lo­ca­tion.

This story is not just about ne­glected in­fra­struc­ture; it’s about pre­serv­ing the dig­nity and her­itage of a com­mu­nity in­te­gral to Pe­shawar’s di­verse mo­saic. It’s time for the gov­ern­ment to heed their calls be­fore these liv­ing mon­u­ments to his­tory are lost for­ever.