When Pakistan Village Honoured Manmohan Singh With School In His Name

New Delhi: Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India, died on Thursday at the age of 92. He was admitted to Delhi AIIMS after his health deteriorated on Thursday night, where he passed away during treatment. The death of former PM Manmohan Singh has sent a wave of mourning across the country, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi expressing grief over his death.

As the country is remembering ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, here is an interesting fact about his childhood connection with Pakistan. Like BJP's veteran leader Lal Krishna Advani, Manmohan Singh also suffered the pain of the partition of the country and crossed the border with his family before settling in Punjab’s Amritsar.

Manmohan Singh was born in Gah village located in the Chakwal district of Punjab province which is a part of Pakistan.

In 2004, Manmohan Singh’s appointment as the Prime Minister of India was not only discussed in India but also in Pakistan, where his village is. The people in his village celebrated his oath-taking ceremony as the PM of India. This was followed by a significant move in 2007 when the then government of Pakistan's Punjab province announced plans to make Gah village an ideal village.

Not only this, the government even named a Government Boys School in Gah village after Manmohan Singh. The school is reportedly known as 'Manmohan Singh Government Boys School', where he did his primary education.

The people of Gah village had requested Manmohan Singh to visit their village once. It is also being claimed that one of his classmates, Raja Mohammad Ali, who also lives in Gah village, visited India and met the former prime minister and his family.

Ali claimed that he and Manmohan Singh studied together from first to fourth class. They continued to meet each other even after Manmohan Singh went to study in Chakwal town.

He thanked Manmohan Singh saying that it was because of him that their village became an ideal village, with good roads, street lights, separate schools for girls and boys, hospitals and other modern amenities.