100-year-old Hindu temple demolished in Pakistan for expansion of seminary
Islamabad, Sep 1 (IANS) A Hindu temple, constructed over 100 years ago, has been demolished in Narowal city of Pakistan’s Punjab province, sparking massive concerns. A minority rights group has said that the structure was intentionally demolished to make space for the expansion of an adjacent seminary and called for reconstructing the temple in its original form, local media reported on Tuesday.
The temple in Siraj village in Narowal city of Punjab was demolished on August 21. The Pakistan Masiha Millat Party (PMMP), which works for the rights of the minorities, has said that a group of people demolished the structure, country’s leading daily Dawn reported.
PMMP Chairman Aslam Parvez Sahotra said he and other local residents have submitted a written application to the Punjab Additional Home Secretary on August 28, requesting authorities to take action against those behind the demolition and the officials who were not able to protect the religious site.
Sahotra said that the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) had leased the land near the temple to a seminary. However, he said that the lease was cancelled after the rent was not paid for several years. He said that parts of the property were later occupied illegally, Dawn reported.
He said that the order issued by the ETPB Deputy Director in Sialkot in January, cancelling the seminary’s lease and ordering eviction of illegal occupants and sealing of the property, was “never implemented.” The PMMP called for reconstructing the temple in its original form and urged the Punjab government to protect temples, gurdwaras and churches and their properties.
In June, the demolition of the 125-year-old Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Sahib in Pakistan’s Farooqabad left portions of the historic shrine in rubble after a local businessman allegedly carried out the work without legal clearance or court order. Authorities acknowledged the demolition only after Sikh residents of Farooqabad took to the streets to protest the incident, a report had detailed.
“For the Sikh community of Farooqabad, the night of June 24 was not an abstraction. It was the sound of machinery tearing into a building their grandparents’ grandparents had prayed in — a gurdwara built over a century ago, when the Singh Sabha movement was still reshaping what it meant to be Sikh in a modernising Punjab. By morning, portions of the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Sahib lay in rubble, demolished by a local businessman who never bothered to seek the legal clearance required to touch it. No court order. No warning to the community that has treated this ground as sacred for generations,” a report in Khalsa Vox detailed.
After the gurdwara was demolished, Sikh residents of Farooqabad took to the streets to protest against the incident. According to the report in Khalsa Vox, an official later admitted that the department failed to take notice of the demolition until local Sikhs protested. It added that the Pakistani authorities responded only after a minority community, long burdened by institutional neglect, was forced to stand up and defend its heritage.
–IANS
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