Kabul artists hit back with mural at terrorists who killed Sikhs

The deceased also included prominent Sikh leader and social worker Awtar Singh Khalsa who was running for parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, representing minorities.

A mural of Sikh leader Rawail Singh with his daughter painted on the wall of the office of the Kabul Governor. (Express photo)

Days after a suicide bomb blast killed at least 19 persons, including 13 prominent Sikh leaders, in Jalalabad of Afghanistan on July 1, a group of local artists in Kabul paid tribute to the victims by painting a huge mural of one of them, Rawail Singh, with his daughter, in the heart of the capital city. The deceased also included prominent Sikh leader and social worker Awtar Singh Khalsa who was running for parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, representing minorities.

Islamic State (ISIS) later claimed responsibility of the deadly attack targeting the minorities Sikhs and Hindus.

Omaid Sharifi, co-founder-cum-president of ArtLords, told The Indian Express over phone, “This mural of Rawail Singh with his daughter has been painted on the wall of the office of the Governor of Kabul, which is in the heart of the city. The text on his mural says ‘You are not going to heaven, you have killed my kind father.’ We have written the text in Urdu, English, Dari and Pashto so that it reaches everyone here.”

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Islamic State (ISIS) later claimed responsibility of the deadly attack targeting the minorities Sikhs and Hindus. (Express photo)

Sharifi said Rawail Singh was one of the volunteers who had been associated with ArtLords since its beginning. “Through this campaign against violence and extremism, our message is clear for the terrorists including ISIS, Taliban and everyone else that they are not going to heaven after killing innocent people. Rawail Singh was a noble man. Through his mural, we have given tribute to all victims of Jalalabad blast, “ he said.

“We have given tribute to all victims of Jalalabad blast,” Sharifi said. (Express photo)

Sharifi said Sikhs and Hindus, though a minority in Afghanistan, were a crucial and inseparable part of their country. “We were shaken when this blast killed 13 prominent Sikhs. Hindus and Sikhs live here in harmony with Muslim community and do business/trade together,” he said.

In an another mural painted at Sedarat Square in Kabul last week, ArtLords have depicted a ‘bleeding Afghanistan’ with a bandage on its heart and the message says: Our wounded homeland needs healing’. They had also painted a mural of Mahatma Gandhi outside Indian Embassy in Kabul.

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

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