The great Martyr Mewa Singh Lopoke’s death anniversary was marked last Sunday morning at Khalsa Diwan Society, where Artist Jarnail Singh unveiled a brand new portrait of the first Sikh freedom fighter who gave his life for the Sikh cause. Mewa Singh came to British Columbia in 1906. He was one of more than 5,000 Punjabi men who arrived in the three years before 1908, the date when the Canadian government stopped further immigration from India. The anniversary of Mewa Singh’s death has been commemorated by Sikhs in British Columbia and California ever since his execution by hanging in New Westminster, B.C., in January 1915. LINK editor and well known filmmaker R. Paul Dhillon is writing a script on Mewa Singh’s life from a biography of the Martyr by the legendary Punjabi writer Kesar Singh.
