Temple to be Demolished

By Faisal Kamal Pasha

RAWALPINDI: A pre-partition 87-year-old Hindu Mandir adjacent to ‘Shamshan Ghat’ in Rawalpindi is facing demolition despite strong protest by the Hindu-Sikh community of the city.

According to an official of the Auqaf Department, Rawalpindi, the building was not a Mandir and it was sealed back in 2005 and was later auctioned to a person for Rs25,000 per month. The said person could not deposit one-year advance amount of rent to Auqaf upon which the department had cancelled his agreement, he added. He said the said person then went to the court and the court decided in his favour and later he gave the building to another party (a media group) on rent, which is now demolishing the historical building. The head of the Hindu and Sikh community Jagmohan Kumar while rejecting theversion of the Auqaf Department told The News that the building is a Mandir and the Hindu community used it to perform last rituals before cremating their dead. He said that there was a Pundit of the Mandir who used to perform the rituals before cremation.

“The two kanals land for ‘Shamshan Ghat’ was allocated to the Hindu community during the first tenure of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto when Kishan Chand Parwani was the federal minister for minorities in her cabinet. The Mandir itself is built over two kanals, which is now being demolished while the open area is being maintained for the community, he said.

According to him the original area of the ‘Shamshan Ghat’ land was 277 kanals and there were several Mandirs along the Tipu Road and Nullah Leh. Some of these Mandirs were demolished before the partition while many were razed to ground after the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 in India.

Most of these Mandirs are under the administrative control of Auqaf Department that has rented them out to different people. There were several Mandirs in the adjacent localities of Raja Bazaar where one could now see residential apartments.

Aneel Parshad, a member of the Hindu community, asked how the Muslims would feel if there were people living inside a mosque using it for residential purpose. According to the plaque fixed on the building, Lala Tansukh Rai, the Raees-e-Azam Rawalpindi, had constructed the Mandir in memory of his wife.

Jagmohan Kumar told The News that the building was not in use due to its dilapidated condition. “When the federal minister of the Benazir Bhutto cabinet gave the ‘Shamshan Ghat’ to the community, the Auqaf Department at that time had assured us that the Mandir would be handed over to us after renovation, which never happened.

The ‘Shamshan Ghat’ is not only used by the locals, but by the foreign missions of China and other Budhist community as well, Jagmohan Kumar said. Sardar Heera Lal, another member of the community, said that they are among the oldest residents of the city. He said that their generations contributed a lot to the development of the city and this part of the land.

The community has demanded of the president, the prime minister and the chief justice of Pakistan to protect their Mandir and ‘Shamshan Ghat’.

“We not only demand the 277 kanals of land that was allotted to the Hindu community before partition, but the two-kanal piece of land where we could cremate our dead according to our religious belief,” they urged.