Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: After waiting for almost five decades, finally, the Hindu community living in the capital city is quite close to get a worship and cremation place as the civic body’s board has formally approved a plot measuring four-kanals in sector H-9 to facilitate the minority on Friday.

The meeting of the Board of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) was held in the chair of the Chairman CDA and the Mayor of Islamabad Shaikh Ansar Aziz, in which the approval was granted for allocation of the aforementioned land.

Currently, around 800 Hindus are living in Islamabad, who have been celebrating festivals inside their homes, and in case of a death in their community, they take the bodies either to Rawalpindi or to their native towns for cremation.

Raj Kumar Gujar, a young activist originally hailing from interior Sindh, while sharing his experience said: “We were facing several problems due to the unavailability of a worship place and a community centre and we have to organise our religious or cultural functions in halls and arts galleries like the PNCA.”

He lauded the decision taken by the civic body and considered it an important achievement for the community and also expressed his gratitude to the Mayor of Islamabad for this decision.

Today’s decision of the board is an outcome of a petition filed by the Hindu Community in the National Commission for Human Rights, which had directed the CDA to provide land to the Hindu community.

While talking to Daily Times, Member Planning of the CDA, confirmed the decision and said: “Hindus are also the citizens of Pakistan and the land would be handed over to this community through the Auqaf Department.”

An officer of the Authority has briefed that the said land would be allotted free of cost to the minority community, which they can use for worship, cremation and also to build a community centre.

The National Coordinator of an Islamabad-based Hindu welfare society, Dr. Ajay Matlani, said: “We demanded for the construction of a worship place also in addition to a piece of land but it is fair enough, if provision of funds is not in the policy of the civic body.”

He added: “We will request the Evacuee Trust Property Board to help us in the construction as we don’t have the funds for this purpose.”

It is pertinent to mention here that Hindu community is also struggling for the restoration of their old “Ram Mandir” (Ram’s Temple), in Saidpur village, which was abandoned in 1947.

The “Mandir” is said to have been built by Raja Man Singh during time of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, but has not been used as a place of worship since partition.

PTI lawmaker Lal Chand Malhi is leading a campaign for the restoration of the said temple and demanded several times the immediate restoration of this temple.

Meanwhile, the board has also approved to align the wedges of the daily wedge staff with the government policy as currently they are receiving less salaries as compared to the minimum wedge set by the federal government which is Rs.14000.

It was quite unfortunate that a 10-point agenda was circulated before the meeting, but the board has decided only on half the items.

A well-placed source briefed that it had become a routine that the concerned directorates had been sending half-backed summaries to the CDA board or even in some cases irrelevant things for approval to just shift their burden on board.

When contacted, the Secretary CDA Board, Asif Shahjahan, said: “I have placed summaries at the Board meeting after cross-checking and sometimes returned back the summaries for further deliberations, but it is the discretion of the Board to defer or return any case.”