Tomb of Pohla Saint in Banda Pir Khan, Abbottabad
An Exclusive Blog by Safdar Hussain
Abbottabad
Long ago the areas of Hazara which are otherwise lush green witnessed the ever worst famine and the poor dwellers had no place to make both ends meet.
Around 1920 the area faced food crisis due scarcity of rains and the prices of wheat and maize were too high and they had gone beyond means of common persons. The little streams had turned dry and the general public started facing starvation.
Three Seers of wheat was available in the markets against one Indian rupee at that time and it was such a high price that fewer could afford it.
In the area of Banda Pir Khan which is administratively part of District Abbottabad a young Sikh trader named as Pohla started feeding the starved people of his area. As he was trader by profession he was relatively well off person compared with other persons whose livelihood was associated with agriculture.
At that time large number of Hindus and Sikhs were residing in this area besides the Muslim community.
Pohla Sant used to cook meal in a large pot. The meal generally comprised of different varieties of pulses including Mong and others. Along with this meal he used to cook Rotis of maize in large quantity to feed the hunger-stricken persons.
This feast which is generally known as lungar in the area was open for everybody irrespective of their faith, creed and race.
Pohla continued serving people in this extra difficult period and the locals started calling him Pohla Sant which is equivalent to Pohla Saint. In the area of Hazara generally Pohla is a nickname of person who is innocent in nature and who does not outsmarts others to prove his wits.
Afterwards the famine ended in the area and Pohla Sant after a few years also breathed his last. As he was Sikh by religion, his body was taken to the bank of a stream for cremation purposes. His relatives made various attempt to cremate his body but they couldn’t succeed in this purpose for two or three consecutive days.
An elderly person Ajab Khan of Banda Pir Khan states that Pohla kept coming in dreams of some Muslims during this episode in which he told these people that he was in fact a Muslim. According to Ajab Khan later on the Muslims of the area buried him in a grave around which shrine was built.
Ajab Khan’s father had seen Pohla when he was in his prime youth and he narrates the story of Pohla as he has learnt it from his father.
Later on Pakistan came into being in 1947 and Sikhs and Hindus migrated to India.
However, the tomb of Pohla continued to be a source of attraction for Sikh pilgrims. The Sikh pilgrims used to pay visit to his tomb in large number after paying visit to their sacred religious places in Hassan Abadal.
Nowadays fewer Sikh pilgrims pay visit to his tomb as the generation which knew about him well has already passed away from this mortal world and the young generation know fewer things about this Sant.
The building structure of the tomb is decaying due to natural circumstances but still there are people in the area who knows it well that it is the shrine of Pohla Sant who served food to starved population of the area during the period of famine. The account of Pohla Sant is like a folktale in the area which is being passed from one generation to the other.
Ends
A view of Banda Pir Khan
