Bhagat Singh's 116th birth anniversary celebrated in Lahore

Bhagat Singh's 116th birth anniversary was celebrated on Thursday, 28 September by a non-profit foundation, which demanded Pakistan's highest gallantry award for the pre-partition era revolutionary leader.

The Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation observed the freedom fighter's birth anniversary on the premises of the Lahore High Court (LHC), and a cake-cutting event was held on the court's lawn.

The foundation's members and other lawyers participated in the ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation Pakistan Head, Advocate Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi, paid rich tributes to the independence hero who was hanged along with his comrades Raj Guru and Sukh Dev by the British in 1931.

The foundation demanded the country's highest gallantry award for Singh. It also demanded an apology from British King Charles III for the judicial murder of the three freedom fighters and compensation to their families. It also demanded the Pakistani government to name Lahore's Shadman Chowk after Bhagat Singh, as the trio was executed there.

The foundation said that the three revolutionaries and their act of chivalry should also be made part of the school syllabus.

Bhagat Singh was executed by the British in 1931 at the age of 23.

His courage and spirit of sacrifice in the face of likely death and his idealism made him one of the most popular icons of the freedom movement.