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Issru village is located along the Malerkotla road, about 12 km from Khanna, and Karnail would walk daily to AS High School to attend classes. He was brought up by his mother Harnam Kaur and an elder brother, who encouraged him to get educated. Karnail was just seven years old when his father Sunder Singh died.
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I was then a student of Class V at AS High School in Khanna, my birthplace. After all, he contributed to the liberation of Goa,” he told me recently.īack in 1955, I came to know about Karnail’s martyrdom from a relative, Mohan Lal Singhi, who was a member of the local unit of the Communist Party of India (CPI), which had organised a condolence meeting in Punjab’s Khanna town, and a larger one at nearby Issru, Karnail’s native village. “I have his picture at my residence, and the last thing I always do before leaving home is to pay obeisance to him. Sakhardande is an associate professor in the history department of the Dhempe College of Arts and Science at Miramar in Panaji. He sacrificed his life at the young age of 25 for Goa’s liberation from the Portuguese rule by braving bullets on his chest on August 15, 1955, at Patradevi, Pernem, in Goa.’Īccording to the GHAG president, Prof Prajal Sakhardande, the bust was made and donated by sculptor Sachin Madge. An inscription below the bust reads: ‘Shaheed Karnail Singh Benipal (-). On the Independence Day in 2015, his bronze bust was installed at Government Primary School - which bears his name - in Patradevi village of Goa’s Pernem taluka by the Goa Heritage Action Group (GHAG) and Goans for Education to mark 60 years of his martyrdom. The 60th anniversary of Goa’s liberation (December 19) is a fitting occasion to remember Shaheed Karnail Singh.