Punjabi singer apologizes for controversial song

CHANDIGARH - Punjabi singer and actor Babbu Mann Monday tendered an apology for singing a song at a concert questioning the circumstances in which freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai died.

Mann in June performed at a concert in Britain where he sang the song which had lines saying that the freedom fighter did not die of wounds inflicted from a cane-charge on him by the British forces in Lahore city (now in Pakistan) in 1928, but due to a heart attack many months later.

“It was not my intention to hurt anyone’s feelings. I just sang the lines that were given to me,” Mann said in Mohali.

Rai, popularly known as ‘Punjab Kesari’ and ‘Sher-e-Punjab’ (the lion of Punjab), died November 1928, months after receiving injuries from the cane-charge when he and others protested the visit of the Simon Commission sent by the British government to discuss constitutional reforms for India without having any Indian member in it.