(All pictures taken by the author shall not be used anywhere without permission)
Date of visit:- 14 October 2017
Before the partition of 1947, the town of Thokar Niaz Baig was located 7 miles outside of the city of Lahore.
The history of this town is not much known; however, some references can be found in Tahrikh-e-Lahore, written by Kanhaiya Lal about a Bhadrakali Mandir, which was the main attraction of the town.
On every Baisakhi, a major festival was celebrated at this temple. Baisakhi also has religious significance for the Sikhs community as the foundation of the Panth Khalsa on this day by the Guru Gobind. There was a place dedicated in town especially for this festival. It used to have a large pond and an old Banyan tree on the temple premises. Luckily, this Banyan tree still standing at this place. However, the pond disappeared from the scenes due to the construction of newly built houses.
Before Pakistan came into being, the land of Niaz Baig belongs to Bhadrakali Mandir. The area has somehow an equal population of Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu communities. After 1947 most of the houses of this area allotted to migrated Mewati families. An old man of this cast told us that this place has many fruit gardens in which many seasonal fruits were available used to be available some sixty years back.
Around the Bhadrakali temple, many ancillaries’ buildings used to exist; also, there were four small temples (remains of one which still can be found), a step-well (Baoli),
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