PHC moved against plan to demolish temples, gurdwara

PESHAWAR: A senior lawyer on Saturday moved the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against plan to demolish three Hindu temples and one gurdwara for commercial purposes in the provincial metropolis and expelling Kashmir refugees from the area.

Muhammad Muazzam Butt advocate, who is also chairman Direct Action Movement against Shiv Sena’s Anti-Constitutional Activities in India, filed the writ petition. The lawyer submitted in the petition that the deputy administrator Evacuee Trust Properties, Asif, had finalised an agreement with an individual Ikram Shinwari, a resident of Landikotal, for construction of a plaza on the places of temples and gurdwara.

Giving facts of the case, he stated that Camp No 987 is an area of about 32 marlas wherein three Hindu temples and one Gurdwara located.He said after partition of India, the Muslims from Jammu and Poonch (Kashmir) were massacred in a huge number. The survivors, who succeeded in migration, were accommodated in different areas of Pakistan, including the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).

The lawyer said some of the survivors from Poonch and Jammu areas of Kashmir were accommodated in the camp No 987. They continued to live in the camp since then as refugees. Muazzam Butt said the camp was named Kashmiri Camp and is known accordingly. He said the camp presently had 13 houses of Kashmir refugees.

The lawyer submitted that the said Kashmiri Camp is an Evacuee Trust property and Kashmiris were settled there on a permanent basis. He said the deputy administrator of the ETPB asked the residents to either vacate the premises or they would be paid an agreed amount as done with Ikram Shinwari, because the department has agreed with him to construct a plaza on the Kashmiri Camp.

Following the entire arrangement, he said plaza is to be constructed by Ikram Shinwari and the temples and gurdwara are to be demolished. The lawyer said a Gurdwara existed in the past in the adjacent property of the trust, but that was demolished and a plaza called Sona Tower constructed on the site.

He said the petitioner is also aggrieved person as he himself is the son of a refugee from Jammu. According to him, after the partition his entire family comprising his grandparents, uncles and aunties were murdered in Ryasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.

It said the petitioner also raised voice because in the recent past the petitioner had launched a movement due to the Shiv Sena’s unconstitutional activities against Muslims. The name of the movement is “Direct Action Movement Against Shiv Sena’s Unconstitutional Activities in India” and the mission of the movement is to compel through public opinion the government of India to protect the rights of Muslims and other minorities in India without discrimination and being a secular state as it claims to be.

Whereas in Pakistan too, the petitioner finds it a constitutional obligation as citizen to persuade the government for protecting the holy places of minorities in Pakistan as well; hence such facts were the moving facts for the petitioner to challenge the unlawful act of the respondents.He requested the court to restrain the respondents from demolishing or damaging or changing the nature of the trust property of Kashmir Camp till the decision of writ petition.