The Guru Nanak Stadium is being decked up for the 75th Independence Day celebrations to be held this Sunday, where Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh will hoist the Tricolour. The CM will also dedicate the Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Memorial Park to the public on August 14. Tribune correspondent Charanjit Singh Teja and photojournalist Vishal Kumar walk you through the preparations that go into holding the state-level function...

Rehearsing for the parade

Around 200 police personnel along with 50 band and drum players would conduct a march-past on the occasion. The Chief Minister will inspect the parade and take salute as a tradition to celebrate the ceremony.

The Punjab Police personnel have been conducting rehearsals for a perfect I-Day celebration. Police Commissioner Sukhchain Singh Gill inspected the rehearsal of the parade on Thursday evening.

Foolproof arrangements in place

Security has been tightened ahead of the state-level Independence Day function, in which the CM will unfurl the Tricolour. After the recovery of IED explosive in a tiffin from Daleke village of Amritsar, the senior police officials are making foolproof arrangements for the Independence Day function. A high alert had already been sounded across the state. The police personnel and para-military forces are being deployed on every corner.

Roads being readied

The roads leading to the Guru Nanak Stadium and Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Memorial Park, where Capt Amarinder would inaugurate the memorial, are being recarpeted. The roads of the Ranjit Avenue, Civil Lines area are also being cleaned manually. The trees and shrubs have also being chopped.

Tricoloured glory

The Guru Nanak stadium is being whitewashed ahead of the I-Day celebrations. Workers are painting the walls, poles and iron grills. The barricades, which have been installed inside the ground, are being painted green, saffron and white to create the effect of a national flag. Tricolored tents are being used to add further effect. The central verges of roads are also being whitewashed.

Jallianwala Centenary Memorial Park

Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh had laid the foundation stone of the Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Memorial Park, around 6 km away from the Jallianwala Bagh, in Ranjit Avenue, on January 25 this year. The state government spent Rs3.52-crore on the memorial and claimed to construct it in record time. This memorial is dedicated to the centennial year of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and its martyrs, who lost their lives on Baisakhi — April 13, 1919, at the hands of autocratic British rulers. However, the workers are giving a final touch to the park. The government officials claim that the memorial was ready to be dedicated to the public and the CM would inaugurate it on August 14.

Architectural concept: The memorial consists of five white stone pillars rising upwards. These pillars symbolise the spirit of martyrs rising towards the sky. Different heights of the five pillars correspond to various age groups of martyrs: children, teenagers, youth, middle aged and the old. They also signify five fingers of the hand and cohesive power of martyrs, who sacrificed their lives for the nation. White colour of the stone is a symbol of purity of their sacrifice.

The central black stone on a circular platform, from where these pillars rise, symbolise the empty space and the void created by the sacrifice of these martyrs. Soil of various villages, to which these martyrs belonged, has been brought to fill up the space below the sacred platform as a befitting tribute to them.

Martyrs’ walls: The walls clad in black and grey granite stone surround the platform with the names of martyrs craved on these. The names of martyrs from the official list of 492 martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh massacre have been carved on the walls.