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| February 1, 2010 | | Restoration of Bhagat Singh's alma mater | | | Lahore: Bradlaugh Hall, where one of India's most influential revolutionaries, Bhagat Singh, once studied is the
focus of a campaign to not only rescue it from disrepair, but also to rename it and other landmarks in Lahore after him. Named after the social reformer and radical
member of British parliament Charles Bradlaugh, the college was built in 1900,
to provide secondary higher education to students from all walks of life. According
to the residents of Rattigan Road, shortly after 1947 Bradlaugh Hall was used
to store foodstuffs and later found life as a steel mill up until the 1980s, and
today it has become a sanctuary for criminal behaviour, with drug addicts and
others entering through 'secret entrances'. It has forced the followers of Bhagat
Singh to campaign in a bid to restore Bradlaugh Hall to its original pre-1947
state, and to turn it into a functioning school with a small museum dedicated
to the independence movement, with a focus on the revolutionary, The Daily Times
reports. Known as a revolutionary Bhagat Singh was hanged in Lahore with his fellow
comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev on March 23, 1931. The followers have also petitioned
to have the school renamed after him, just as they want Shadman Square, the place
where he was hanged, to be a memorial renamed after him. They have petitioned
previous and current chief Punjab Ministers, the district government of Lahore
and the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) to allow for the restoration to take
place, but have not as yet received any positive response from the authorities.
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