Fatehgarh Sahib – The Story of Thanda Burj (Part 3)

On a fateful day of December 1704, Mata Gujri and the two younger saahibzaadas of Guru Gobind Singh ji were arrested by the Mughal police officers at Saheri, a village in present day Ropar district. The family was on its way to Ropar, but was betrayed mid-way by one of their trusted servants, and was thus captured by the Mughal police. Post the arrest, Mata Gujri and her grandsons were confined at Wazir Khan’s Thanda Burj (Cold Tower).

The Thanda Burj was designed to capture the cool night breezes of air drawn over water channels in the hot summer months. In the dead of winter, the unheated tower offered no comfort to the prisoners inside. While the biting cold pierced them at nights, the days were spent facing trials at Wazir Khan’s court. Despite the freezing cold and other atrocities at the hands of the Mughal police, the young saahibzaadas and their grandmother refused to give up on their faith. After three days of farcical trial, on 26th December 1704, Fateh Singh and his elder brother Zorawar Singh were martyred at Sirhind. On hearing the news of the execution of her young grandsons, Mata Gujri collapsed inside the Thanda Burj and died there. Much later, Gurudwara Thanda Burj Mata Gujri was constructed at this spot to commemorate her brave sacrifice.

The bodies of the martyred saahibzaadas and their grandmother were later cremated by Diwan Todar Mal, about whom I wrote in the first post of this series. The spot where they were cremated has another gurudwara built in their memory, called Gurudwara Jyoti Swaroop.

When I visited Fatehgarh Sahib last month, Gurudwara Thanda Burj Mata Gujri was under renovation. The white-washed plaster façade is now giving way to a brick-wall look, which is not only pleasant to the eyes, but also seems to be adding more character to the construction. Hope the next time I am there, the make-over is complete and I get to capture pretty photos of this historic monument.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Please do share your feedback in the comments section below and stay tuned, for the next post would be about some more renovation photos and stories from the Gurudwara Fatehgarh Sahib complex.

Happy travelling!