Surana is a village in Muradnagar, located 30 km from Ghaziabad. People do not celebrate the festival of Rakshabandhan here since the 12th century. The daughter-in-law of Surana village ties Rakhi on the wrists of her brothers, but the girls of this village do not celebrate the festival of Rakshabandhan. Even if the people of the village settle somewhere else, then they also do not celebrate the festival of Rakshabandhan.

According to a report by Zee Hindustan, the people of the village also consider this day a black day. The total population of the village is around 22 thousand. Surana is a huge place of residence of Chandravanshi Ahir Kshatriyas of Chhabria gotra. Surana village was earlier known as Songadh. After coming out of Alwar in Rajasthan, the Ahirs of Chhabria gotra established a small manor in Surana and settled the village. The name of the village Surana i.e. ‘hundred’ is derived from the word ‘Rana’.

It is believed that, when the Ahirs populated this village, they were a hundred in number and Rana means warrior, hence the name of this hideout was named Surana after those hundred Kshatriya Ahir Ranas. Chhabria Rahul Surana, a resident of the village, told that Son Singh Rana, a descendant of Prithviraj Chauhan, who came from Rajasthan hundreds of years ago, had camped on the banks of the Hindon river. When Mohammad Gauri came to know that the descendants of Prithviraj Chauhan live in Sohangarh, he attacked Sohangarh on the day of Rakshabandhan and crushed women, children, elderly and young youth alive under the feet of elephants.

According to the people of the village, Muhammad Ghori was attacked many times in this village. But every time his army went blind while entering the village. Because the gods used to protect this village. On the day of Rakshabandhan, the deities had gone to bathe in the Ganges. Mohammad Ghori got the information of which and taking advantage of that, Muhammad Ghori attacked this village.Mahavir Singh Yadav told that in the year 1206, on the day of Rakshabandhan, Muhammad Gauri attacked the village with elephants. After the invasion, this village was resettled. Because ‘Jaskaur’, a woman resident of the village had gone to her Pehar (her house) that day, during which Jaskaur was pregnant, which survived due to not being present in the village. Later Jaskaur gave birth to two children ‘Lucky’ and ‘Chunda’ and both the children grew up and settled back in Songadh.

The head of the village Renu Yadav states that, there is an old tradition in the village that Raksha Bandhan is not celebrated here. The total population of Chhabria Gautra is about 8 thousand who do not celebrate this Rakshabandhan. Apart from this, some other gotras settled from outside celebrate that festival. However, there are some people in the village whose son or the cow growing in their house had a calf on the day of Rakshabandhan. After this he again tried to celebrate the festival, but due to the accident at home, no one ever celebrated Rakshabandhan again.

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