The Sirhind execution is the story that makes Sikh December what it is. After the family was separated crossing the Sarsa river, Mata Gujri and the two youngest boys were betrayed by a former servant and handed to the governor Wazir Khan, held in the Thanda Burj — the cold tower, open to the winter — and brought to court over several days. They were offered their lives and position for conversion and refused; the sentence was to be bricked into a wall alive, and when the wall collapsed they were executed. Their grandmother died on hearing of it. Punjab observes the anniversary as the Shaheedi Jor Mela at Fatehgarh Sahib with hundreds of thousands attending, schools closed, and langar in the streets. In 2022 the Indian government designated 26 December as Veer Baal Diwas; some Sikh bodies welcomed the recognition and others objected that a Sikh memory was being folded into a national narrative, including over the naming.