PHC maintains ETPB decision to partition centuries-old temple

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has maintained the decision of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) to partition a centuries-old temple to enable members of both the Sikh and Hindu communities in the city to use it as a place of worship.
A single bench headed by Justice Nisar Hussain Khan set aside the verdict of the lower court, which had cancelled the decision of the ETPB, after hearing all the parties to the dispute.The court said in its order that the ETPB decision to divide the temple for the Sikhs and Hindus was right as both had been using the temple for their religious activities for centuries.
The bench observed that members of both communities should be tolerant and respect each other’s religious sentiments. The judge observed that Constitution of Pakistan guaranteed rights to non-Muslims and the Sikhs and Hindus should also show tolerance to each other’s religions.
The bench was hearing the civil revision petition filed by Nanu Ram belonging to the Sikh community, against the judgment of a subordinate court that had held in 2013 that the controversial temple located in the RA Bazaar in Peshawar Cantonment was a Hindu place of worship. The lower court had rejected the claim of the Sikh community that a portion of the said temple was a gurdwara.
Lawyer Arshad Ali, who appeared for the Sikh community in the case, submitted that the Sessions Judge’s decision was unlawful and against the lawful right of the Sikh community.
Advocate Shah Faisal Utmankhel appeared for Javed Lal, who has been contesting the case on behalf of the Hindu community. He stated that an additional district and sessions judge had decided the case in their favour in 2013 and declared that the relevant documents showed that there was never any gurdwara inside the RA Bazaar temple.
According to the members of Hindu community, the controversy erupted after Nano Ram and some other members of the Hindus converted to Sikh religion in 1991. They claimed that after conversion, Nano Ram and others started using a portion of the temple as their place of worship and this annoyed the members of the Hindu community who filed a civil suit for declaring their act as illegal.
A few years ago a civil judge dismissed their civil suit and declared that a platform of the said temple, which was mentioned in the relevant record, was historically used as gurdwara. However, Javed Lal filed an appeal before the court of additional district and sessions judge, which set aside the order of the civil judge and decided the case in his favour.
However, the ETPB lawyer Gul Hussain Khilji said that to maintain peace and harmony between the two communities and keeping in view their religious sentiments, the temple was divided into two portions to enable the Sikhs and Hindus to separately pursue their religious activities.