Gurdwara Shahid Ganj Singh Singhania, Lahoreਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਸ਼ਹੀਦ ਗੰਜ ਸਿੰਘ ਸਿੰਘਾਨੀਆ, ਲਾਹੌਰ

Gurdwara Shahid Ganj Singh Singhania is a historic Sikh gurdwara in Naulakha Bazaar, Lahore, Pakistan, standing at Shahidganj, the place of martyrs. It marks the square, first known as Nakhas Chowk, where large numbers of Sikh men, women and children were publicly executed during the persecutions of the 1700s, and where their courage is still remembered in daily prayer.

What is Gurdwara Shahid Ganj Singh Singhania?

Gurdwara Shahid Ganj Singh Singhania, also spelled Gurdwara Shaheedganj Singh Singhnian, is the shrine that keeps the memory of the martyrs of Shahidganj. Shahid means martyr and ganj means a place or store, so the name speaks of a place rich in martyrdom. The gurdwara stands opposite Gurdwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh, and the two shrines together mark one of the most painful and most honoured sites in Sikh history. For Sikhs, a visit here is not sightseeing. It is remembrance.

History: an execution ground in the 1700s

The square began as Nakhas Chowk, a market near Delhi Gate where captives, horses and cattle were sold. In 1721 Zakaria Khan became the Mughal governor of Lahore and began a campaign against the Sikhs. Rewards were offered for Sikh heads and for information, and anyone who helped Sikhs risked punishment. Captured Sikhs were brought to Lahore in chains and executed in public at the horse market, which Sikhs afterwards called Shahid Ganj, the place of martyrs.

The killing continued under later governors. During the Chhota Ghallughara of 1746, under Yahya Khan, the Sikh residents of Lahore were rounded up and executed, and captives taken in the countryside were marched back to the city and beheaded at Nakhas Chowk. Under Shah Nawaz Khan and then Mir Mannu, governor from 1748 to 1753, the campaign was renewed with the help of Adina Beg. Sikh prisoners, among them about five hundred men captured at Ram Rauni, were tortured and executed at Shahidganj. Sikh women were held in cells at the site, forced to grind grain, and many of their children were killed. Historians give very different totals for the dead across the whole period, from tens of thousands to far higher figures, so no single number should be read as exact.

Two names are linked with this ground above all others. Bhai Taru Singh Ji, a farmer who fed and sheltered Sikhs, was arrested on the orders of Zakaria Khan and executed at Lahore in 1745. His own shrine stands opposite. Sikh sources also associate this site with the martyrdom of Bhai Mani Singh Ji, the scholar and granthi of the Golden Temple. One widely used account gives his martyrdom here on 14 June 1738, while other accounts place it in 1737, so the year is best read as the late 1730s rather than as a settled date.

A shared and contested site

The same ground also holds a Muslim history, and an honest account must say so plainly. A mosque built by Abdullah Khan stood at Shahidganj. Sources date its completion to 1722, with the building work finished by 1753, and it stood beside the shrine of Pir Shah Kaku. When Sikh forces took Lahore in 1762, the mosque came under Sikh control and the gurdwara for Bhai Taru Singh Ji was built within the same grounds.

Under British rule the ownership of the site was disputed for decades. Claims by Muslim petitioners from 1850 onwards were rejected, the courts kept the existing position, and a notification on 22 December 1927 placed the mosque building and adjoining land with the gurdwara. On the night of 7 to 8 July 1935, while talks were still going on, the old mosque building was demolished by its Sikh custodians. Riots followed in Lahore. A later court judgement in 1940 recognised that the building had been a mosque, but held that the claim had come too late because Sikhs had held the property for more than 170 years. After Partition in 1947 the shrines passed to the Evacuee Trust Property Board of Pakistan, and the legal position was not reversed.

What stands there today?

A new gurdwara building replaced the older structure at Shahidganj in 1935, and the building has been renewed since then. Writers describe a marble structure with a portico raised on a podium at the centre of the site and a decorated interior. Traces of the old holding cells and student quarters have been reported at the premises, along with a well. A World Gurudwaras account describes the present Singh Singhania building as a three storey white structure with a large dome, rebuilt and renovated in 2004, with the underground chambers of the old jail open to pilgrims. After 1947 the gurdwara came under the Evacuee Trust Property Board, and it is counted among the few historic Sikh shrines in Pakistan that still serve their original purpose.

Significance for Sikhs

This gurdwara holds a special place in the Sikh Ardaas, the daily prayer of remembrance. The prayer recalls the Singhs and Singhania, the Sikh men and women who gave their heads for the faith and did not waver. Singhania, the women martyrs, are at the heart of this shrine in a way they are at few others. Their suffering at Shahidganj, grinding grain in prison while their children were killed, is remembered as endurance, not only as grief. The shrine therefore speaks to every visitor about faith held under pressure, and about ordinary people, many of them unnamed, who would not give up what they believed.

How to reach Gurdwara Shahid Ganj Singh Singhania

The gurdwara is in Naulakha Bazaar, also reached through Landa Bazaar, close to Lahore Junction railway station and outside Delhi Gate of the old Walled City. The bazaar is busy and the entrance can be easy to miss among the shops, so visitors usually ask locally for Shahidganj or for the Bhai Taru Singh shrine opposite. Pilgrims from outside Pakistan normally visit Lahore gurdwaras as part of organised yatra groups under arrangements overseen in Pakistan by the Evacuee Trust Property Board. Access to individual shrines can change, and the neighbouring Bhai Taru Singh shrine was reported closed to the public in December 2022, so travellers should confirm the current position before planning a visit.