Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 7

City-based architect and civil engineer Raj Kumar Aggarwal, who claims to have originally prepared the model of the Jallianwala Bagh in the 1970s, has heaved a sigh of relief as officials of the Government Railway Police (GRP) have managed to locate the Jallianwala Bagh model which was misplaced during the re-construction of a part of the Amritsar railway station. It was in bad condition.

After officials at the Amritsar railway station expressed their inability to find the miniature of the historic garden, the 62-year-old had approached GRP officials at the railway station.

Expressing happiness over the finding of the model, he said it was the first model which he had prepared in the beginning of his career. He recalled it was a working model in which the fountains used to function properly. “I am yet to check whether the fountains still work,” he said. He has demanded that the model should now be placed at an appropriate place for the public.

The model had not been spotted at the Amritsar railway station after the development and reconstruction work started there over seven years ago. It used to be placed at the entrance near the general waiting hall.

He was only 20-year-old when he had prepared a working replica of the national memorial of freedom struggle — Jallianwala Bagh — from trash. The model was installed in the main waiting hall of the Amritsar railway station in 1979. “I remember that then railway minister Kamlapathi Tripathi was quite impressed with the model, which was made in the ’70s,” he said.