Fatehgarh Sahibਫਤਿਹਗੜ੍ਹ ਸਾਹਿਬ

Sirhind and the martyrdom

Sirhind was once among the great cities of the Mughal empire, a provincial capital on the Delhi to Lahore road. Its name is remembered in Sikh history for December 1705, when the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh, Zorawar Singh aged nine and Fateh Singh aged seven, were bricked alive here on the orders of Wazir Khan. Their grandmother Mata Gujri died of grief in the cold tower where the family was held.

Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib now marks the site of the martyrdom, and Gurdwara Jyoti Sarup nearby marks where the Sahibzadas were cremated. Every December, the Shaheedi Jor Mela draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, one of the largest religious gatherings in Punjab.

Rauza Sharif and the old city

Sirhind's other great monument is the Rauza Sharif, the tomb complex of Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, the Naqshbandi Sufi known as Mujadid Alf Sani. The Aam Khas Bagh, a Mughal garden with its waterworks, recalls the city's imperial past. Few places in Punjab hold Sikh and Sufi memory so close together.

The district today

Fatehgarh Sahib district was created in 1992 from Patiala and is among Punjab's smallest, with about 600,000 people in 2011. It holds Mandi Gobindgarh, the steel town whose furnaces and rolling mills made it an industrial name across north India, alongside the quieter mandi towns of Bassi Pathana, Amloh and Khamanon. Its fields grow wheat and paddy for the Khanna and Gobindgarh markets.

The district's name means the town of victory, for the victory of faith the young martyrs won here. Village-level pages for Fatehgarh Sahib district are being added to the Kosh.