Holding Mahatma Gandhi and the then Congress party responsible for Bhagat Singh's martyrdom, his younger sister Parkash Kaur sees a ray of hope in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
"If Mahatma Gandhi and the then Congress leaders, including Jawahar Lal Nehru, had wanted to save Bhagat Singh, they could have easily done it, but they deliberately allowed Bhagat and his associates Sukhdev and Rajguru to be hanged," 85-year-old Kaur told reporters after laying a wreath at the memorial of her brother at his native village Khatkar Kalan in Punjab.
She hopes that Vajpayee would apprise the nation of the sacrifice of the martyrs and do something for the betterment of their kin.
Bhagat Singh would have been disillusioned if he were to see the state of affairs in the country today. The kind of values for which he had sacrificed his life for the country are missing, she said.
She accused political parties of trying to gain political mileage by organising rallies on the occasion pointing out that the Punjab government has done nothing for the benefit of Bhagat Singh's kin despite repeated requests.
"I am still getting only Rs 2,000 as pension, which was started by former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal," she said.
She expressed happiness that the Pakistan's Peoples Party is observing Bhagat Singh's martyrdom day at Lahore in Pakistan. The PPP had invited another of her brothers to Lahore on the occasion but he could not go because of ill health. Her nephew, Kiranjit Singh, went to Lahore to mark the occasion.
She hoped that relations with Pakistan would further improve under Vajpayee's leadership and that people of both the countries, whose elders had jointly participated in the freedom struggle, would be able to live in an atmosphere of peace.
