In December 1704 the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, Baba Zorawar Singh Ji and Baba Fateh Singh Ji, and their grandmother Mata Gujri Ji, were taken to Sirhind on the orders of the Mughal governor Wazir Khan. The boys were executed. Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib marks the site.
Jahaz Haveli, in Harnam Nagar about a kilometre away, is described as the residence of Diwan Todar Mal, a Jain merchant, on whose land the bodies were cremated. Tradition holds that Wazir Khan let him buy only the ground he could cover in gold ashrafis laid vertically on edge, which is routinely called the most expensive land ever sold.
That account has a dating problem. The death date of 1665 or 1666 that is sometimes attached to Todar Mal belongs to Todar Mal Shahjahani, an official of Shah Jahan's reign, and Akbar's revenue minister of the same name died in 1589, so neither can be the man at Sirhind in 1705. Historians including Fauja Singh have noted the conflation. It is set down here as the community's living tradition and not as an established fact.
A kilometre away stands Rauza Sharif, the tomb of Shaikh Ahmad Faruqi Sirhindi, a Naqshbandi figure of the first rank, who died in 1624. The district describes it as a second Mecca for Sunni Muslims. The urs shifts about ten days earlier each year.
The two shrines are neighbours, with a difficult shared history between them.
The Shaheedi Jor Mela in the last week of December draws several lakh people to the town, and Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib, Thanda Burj and Jyoti Sarup are the three sites the crowd moves between.
The town is also the district headquarters and the whole district's public identity rests on the events of December 1704, which is why everything else in it is invisible.
Sirhind's ruins, the Rauza Sharif, the Aam Khas Bagh, Sanghol and the Mughal towns of the district all lie within half an hour of the mela ground and are not on any route.
fatehgarhsahib.nic.in, on Rauza Sharif.