Barabanki (Uttar Pradesh): The ancestral mansion of late Indian hockey player, Kunwar Digvijay Singh also known as KD Singh Babu is set to be auctioned on March 11.
There is a lot of disappointment among the sports fraternity around the development.
The ancestral mansion of the hockey player is spread over 35,000 square feet area in the Civil Lines area. It is understood that a family dispute was going on between the sons of Thakur Raghunath Singh - Kunwar Rajendra Singh, Kunwar Bhupendra Singh, Kunwar Sukhdev Singh, Kunwar Naresh Singh, Kunwar Digvijay Singh and Kunwar Suresh Singh.
Sources said that a case was going on in a local court over the division of the property. The court had ordered in 2009 that the property should be sold and the money should be distributed between the brothers. However, on 16 February 2024, the mansion was sealed on orders from Upper Civil Judge Senior Division Khan Zeeshan Masood.
Also, the local court ordered to hold the auction for the ownership of the property on March 11 from 2:30 PM. The base price for the property is Rs five crores and the eight candidates, interested in buying the property had inspected it already.
However, several hockey buffs have demanded that the house should be turned into a museum. Former Officiating Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Dr Ammar Rizvi has written a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath demanding the state government take the rights of the mansion and convert it into a museum.
Apart from him, former Barbanki District BJP chief Ramnath Maurya and former skipper of Uttar Pradesh hockey team Salahuddin have also made a similar demand and wrote separate letters to Yogi Adityanath.
Kunwar Digvijay Singh, born on February 02, 1922, in Barabanki, became an excellent hockey player at the age of 14. He played his first tournament in Dewan, Barabanki and it was from here that his skills were honed.
He represented Uttar Pradesh for 16 years and then was made the vice-captain of the Indian hockey team. He was vice-captain in the 1948 London Olympics and was made the captain in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. He played an important role in getting gold medals for India in both these Olympics.
KD Singh Babu was the first Indian player in Asia to be awarded the Holmes Trophy in the United States of America. This trophy is presented by the Hemsford Foundation of Los Angeles, America.
It is also called the Nobel Prize for Sports. He went to Sri Lanka as a member of the Indian hockey team. And then to East Africa, where under the leadership of late Major Dhyan Chand, known as the magician of hockey, where the team scored a total of 200 goals, out of which KD Singh netted 70 goals. Due to his performance, he was made the vice-captain of the Indian team in the 1948 London Olympics.
Apart from hockey, he excelled in football, badminton and cricket. In football, he played in the National Championship and also scored four centuries in the National Cricket Championship on behalf of Sheeshmahal Cricket Club.
Hockey player Salahuddin says that even on the day his mother passed away, he was seen clinging to his love for hockey. After the cremation in the afternoon, he again reached the ground at 2 o'clock to play.
The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi invited him several times to join politics and he would be made a Rajya Sabha member, but he always stayed away from politics. He was against political interference in sports.
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