HARIPUR: The local administration has removed a monument of Sikh General Hari Singh Nalwa from Siddique-i-Akbar Chowk in Haripur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to details, the eight feet tall metal structure was put up in Sept 2017 as part of the city’s beautification plan. The structure with its cemented base cost around Rs2.5 million, a local daily while quoting sources reported.
Sources claimed that the monument was removed after religious parties objected to its installation at the intersection named after first caliph of Islam Hazrat Abdul Bakar (RA).
The sources added that the horseman would be installed close to a tank placed half a furlong away in the east on the GT Road. They said a new monument carrying the name of Islam’s first caliph would be installed at the Siddique-i-Akbar Chowk.
Haripur was founded in 1822-23 by the then governor of Hazara, Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa. It happened four years after Sikhs annexed Kashmir and its gateway with the valley of Hazara after facing tough resistance from the local tribes.
The Sikh governor, according to the Hazara Gazetteer 1883-84, founded Haripur or (Hari’s town) on the advice of Mukadam Musharraf, the chief of local Gujjar tribe, to maintain the first Sikh conquest of the area.
