The Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib is a historic gurdwara near Parliament House in New Delhi. It was built in 1783, after Sikh military leader Baghel Singh Dhaliwal captured Delhi, on 11 March 1783, and his brief stay in Delhi, led to the construction of several Sikh religious shrines within the city. This one marks the site of cremation of the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, after his martyrdom in November 1675 for saving Hindu Kashmiri Pandits, under orders of Aurangzeb. The Gurudwara Sahib is built near old Raisina village near Raisina Hill, at present Pandit Pant Marg, took 12 years to build. Prior to that, a mosque had been built near the spot; eventually later Mughal emperorShah Alam II gave the permission to build a Gurdwara sahib there. The Gurdwara Rakabganj sahib is also home to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee.
History
The Gurdwara marks the site, where Lakhi Shah Banjara and his son Bhai Naghaiya burnt their own house to cremate the headless body of the Sikh Guru GuruTegh Bahadur sahib who, on 11 November 1675, was martyred by beheading at Chandni Chowk on the orders of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb for refusing to convert to Islam and buried the ashes in the house itself. In 1707 when Guru Gobind Singh tenth Sikh guru come to Delhi to meet prince Muzaum later Mughal king Bahadur Shah I, he located the place of cremation with help of local Sikhs and built a simple Memorial there. Later a mosque came to be built at site which s. Baghel Singh had to demolish in 1783 to raise gurdwara at the place. Muslims again built a mosque at site during mutiny of 1857. Sikhs took the matter to court which decided in favour of Sikhs and they quickly rebuilt the Gurdwara.Another dispute arose when during 1914 a portion of boundary wall was demolished by British Goveronment to straighten a passage to viceregal building.On a protest and agitation raised by Sikhs Goveronment yielded as soon as World War I came to end in 1918, and boundary wall was rebuilt at public expense. Construction of present building was started in 1960 and was completed in 1967–68. The spot where the Guru sahib were beheaded is marked by Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib. The Guru sahib's severed head was brought from Delhi to Anandpur Sahib in Punjab by Bhai Jaita ji and was cremated by his son, Guru Gobind Rai, who later became Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs. The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee has made a 1984 Sikh Genocide Memorial there in Gurdwara complex to memorise large scale violence that existed against Sikhs during 1984. In this names of those killed are transcribed on a wall.
