GAH, May 31: People in at least two districts of Pakistan's Punjab province, Chakwal and Jhelum, are laying claim to being the ancestral roots of the new Indian prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, while documentary record seems to corroborate only one version.

The Government Primary School in Gah - a small village some 25 kilometres from the main Chakwal district headquarters - holds a unique document which gives some insight into the humble origins of Dr Singh whose date of birth is mentioned as 4th February 1932 and not 26th September 1932, the date mentioned in the hand out issued by the Congress Party in India.

However, other information in the record corroborates the place of birth and the father's name as mentioned in the official bio-data of Dr Manmohan Singh. On serial number 187 of the admission register of the school is mentioned the name Manmohan Singh, son of Gurmukh Singh.

The school record suggests Mr Singh belonged to "Kohli" caste, while the profession of his father was shop keeping. Admitted to the single room school on 17th April 1937, Manmohan Singh completed his education up to class fourth in the school till 31 March 1941.

The school, located in the narrow lanes of Gah village, has not changed much since late 1930s when Abdul Fazal Karim was the headmaster and Daulat Ram the only teacher imparting education to kids in a single room school without any boundary walls.

The single room school in which Manmohan Singh was a student now has three rooms, a kutcha (mud) compound and a couple of swings and a slide. The surrounding locale of the school has a few remnants of the pre-partition days and the only standing structure of those days near the school is used as "patwarkhana."

The incumbent headmaster of the school, Mohammad Iqbal, and teacher Ghulam Mustafa, expressed joy that a pupil of the school which now has 102 students, both girls and boys, had become the prime minister of India.

"I am happy and proud to know that he (Dr Manmohan Singh) was a student of this school," said headmaster Iqbal. Mr Iqbal said he had told his students that a former student had risen to become the Indian prime minister.

A resident of Gah, Baz Khan, said if Manmohan Singh visited the area, he would recognise the "Pippal and Bohrr trees" in the area which bring back the nostalgia of the pre-partition days. The only change is the construction of embankments around the sitting area of the trees and the ponds leading up to the village.

The people in the area suddenly catapulted into regional limelight seem excited by the attention and expect Dr Manmohan Singh to visit the place of his early childhood.

Drawn by the nostalgia of the childhood days, one Joginder Singh, whose name finds mention in the contemporaries of Mohan Singh in the school records, visited Gah recently.

According to Inspector Abdul Saleem of Security Branch Chakwal Police, Joginder Singh bearing Indian passport No 2784127 and a resident of Labour Colony, Ludhiana, visited Gah during February-March 2004. However, it could not be verified if Joginder Singh visiting Gah was the son of Autar Singh or Subhan Singh, as both are shown to be the contemporaries of Dr Manmohan Singh in the school record.

Another contemporary of Dr. Manmohan Singh in Gah's primary school, Ahmed Khan, continues to till his lands at the ripe old age of 73. However, he could not recall if Dr Manmohan Singh was his class fellow but said he would welcome him if he visited the area.

Nothing much could be confirmed about further education of Dr Singh after 1941 from Gah. However, some 100 kilometres from Gah, people in Kallan Gujran and Dhaniala village near Jhelum recalled a well-to-do Sikh family doing business of shop keeping.

The area had a large Sikh community before partition and some signs of Gurdwaras could be seen there. At Government High School No 1 in Kallan Gujran, the headmaster, Chaudhry Ghazanfar Hussain, claimed that one Manmohan Singh also studied in the school during pre-partition days and completed his secondary education from there.

However, the inspection of the tattered school record did not correspond to the date of birth and father's name as mentioned in the bio-data of Dr Singh. "In those days, people were not particular about their dates of birth," said the headmaster while trying to explain that the Manmohan Singh born in 1923 and who studied in class fifth and sixth in the school was now the prime minister of India.

The locals and elders could point out the house of the well- to-do Sikh family in Dhaniala near the COD Kalla. According to the locals, some army officials had also visited the Dhaniala place on Friday to verify if Mr Mohan Singh lived in the area.

Raja Kamran Nawaz of police check post Kalla Gujran said that Inder Kumar Gujral, a former prime minister of India, belonged to Shumali Mohalla of Jhelum. Mr Nawaz said Jhelum's claim to Mohan Singh was not misplaced, as Chakwal became a separate district only in mid- 1980's and before that it was part of Jhelum district.