Date:12/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/12/stories/2007111250690900.htm

National

Gandhian’s dream fulfilled

Luv Puri

Sant Singh Teg

Jammu: The dream of 100-year-old Gandhian Sant Singh Teg was fulfilled after his death when his ashes were immersed in a river across the Line of Control.

Four members of the family of Teg, who breathed his last in September, reached Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir, with his ashes to immerse them in the Jhelum.

Teg had urged the Pakistan government to allow him to visit his birthplace, which he left 60 years ago during the Partition. “My father really wanted to go to his native place as he had spent four decades there. Somehow he could not. But now we have fulfilled his desire,” his youngest son Nanak Singh said.

Teg was born in Hattian Dupatta village of Muzaffarabad district and his family owned a transport company before the Partition. After 1947, he moved across the Line of Control. In the pre-1947 scenario, it was quite common for Hindus and Sikhs of PoK to immerse ashes of their elders in rivers flowing through the area.