CHANDIGARH: Not many know that the new Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif has an India link. Before his appointment on Monday, residents of Jati Umra village near Amritsar were praying that Shehbaz becomes the PM of the neighbouring country and achieves success.
That’s because this is Sharif’s ancestral village, in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district. He had visited the place about eight years ago.
Dr Dilbagh Singh’s father, the late Massa Singh was a friend of Mian Mohammad Sharif, the father of Shehbaz and former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif.
Talking to this daily, Dilbagh said, “All the villagers prayed in the gurdwara that Shehbaz becomes the next PM of Pakistan. They know that he has been the Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province.”
However, he added that the villagers understand that it will be difficult for Sharif to visit the village at the moment, given the tension between India and Pakistan.
“Shehbaz, his father and five uncles came here in December, 2013. They immediately struck a connection with the villagers. Sharif and his family members visited the grave of his great grandfather Mian Mohammad and offered a holy sheet. We visited their family’s house in Lahore in 2010 and 2011,’’ recalled Dilbagh.
He also said that their two-room ancestral house is now part of the village gurdwara.
This house was situated behind the gurdwara and when the Sharifs visited the village, they said that the house be made part of the gurdwara.