Martyrdom of Bhai Taru Singh
Bhai Taru Singh, a young farmer of Puhla who sent his savings to Sikhs in hiding, was arrested at Lahore on an informer's word. He refused to accept Islam and was martyred when the hair and skin were scraped from his head.
Bhai Taru Singh farmed at Puhla in the Majha, paid his revenue, lived on little, and passed on what he saved to Sikhs driven into exile. The Prachin Panth Prakash says the informer Harbhagat Niranjania told the governor about him.
He was jailed and tortured, then brought before Zakariya Khan and charged with sedition. Offered Islam or death, he refused, and the sentence was the scraping of his scalp. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism dates this to 1 July 1745, when he was about 25. It gives the same day for the death of Zakariya Khan.
Hari Ram Gupta gives a different date and ending. He places the event among the reprisals after the killing of Massa Ranghar, says Bhai Taru Singh's body was handed to Hindus still living, and has him pass away in a dharamshala some days later, with cremation on 25 June 1743. Both accounts place the cremation outside the Delhi Gate of Lahore, later the site of a Shahid Ganj.[EoS][EoS][Gupta]
Dates in the sources
- 1743-06-25: Hari Ram Gupta dates the cremation to this day and says Bhai Taru Singh lingered for a few days before it.[Gupta]