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Sikhs Want To Repair Gurdwara Damaged in Baghdad, Iraq  
Satinder Bains, Indo News Service
New Delhi, March 6


Gurdwara Baba Nanak, Baghdad Iraq

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT GURU NANAKS VISIT TO BAGHDAD, IRAQ

India's Sikh community wants to undertake the repair of a historic Gurdwara in Baghdad that was damaged in the US-led war on Iraq.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), which controls Sikh shrines in India, has written to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to allow its delegation to visit Baghdad and assess the damage to the shrine.

The group said it wanted to do the job in keeping with the Sikh tradition of voluntary service.

Two shells from an American tank narrowly missed this ancient Gurdwara that commemorated Guru Nanak's visit in 1520, but their impact damaged the structure somewhat.

"The force of the two blasts has shattered the windows overlooking a courtyard dedicated to a famous Shia Muslim, Sheikh Bahlol," SGPC president Kirpal Singh Badungar told IANS.

He said the exact damage could be known only after a visit to the site.

This comes alongside a similar offer to repair the shrine from Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, at the behest of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Singh has written to U.S. Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill stating his government would like to take up the job.

In his communiqué to Blackwill, the chief minister proposed sending a team from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) to assess the damage and thereafter sending workmen to repair it as per Sikh traditions.

Guru Nanak had visited Baghdad on his way back from Mecca and Medina.

He stayed outside the city, about two km north of what is now the Baghdad West railway station, and held discourses with the keepers of the mausoleum of Fakir Bahlol.

After the guru left, the locals raised a memorial in the form of a platform at the place where he had sat. Gradually, a room was constructed over the platform. Sikh soldiers who went to Iraq during World War I built a Gurdwara there.

Since it is located within a graveyard, visitors were banned from staying overnight, cooking meals or organizing "langars" or serving community meals.

Immigrant Sikhs had frequented the Gurdwara until the first Gulf War of 1991 forced thousands of Sikhs to leave Iraq.