Report sought on commercial activities

LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah directed the chief secretary on Friday to file by the second week of September a detailed report about the protection of heritage, culture and architectural sites across the province.

Advocate Azhar Siddique, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the Walled City was a heritage site. He said the Walled City Act was aimed at protecting historical sites but more than 400 commercial and high-rise buildings had been constructed in the area since 2002.

Deputy Attorney General Nasar Ahmad and an assistant advocate general supported the arguments stating that the Walled City needed to be protected. Azhar said that no building regulation rules had been promulgated to protect the Walled City.

The court was hearing a petition by Asif Ali Mirza, a resident of Kashmiri Gate. He had submitted that his family had been living in the area for more than a century. He said his grandfather had allocated a property for religious purposes and that a registered waqf deed was executed by his father in 1985.

He said the property was currently being used for holding majalis-i-aza and was waqf in the name of Qasr-i-Abbas Imambargah. He said the area where the property was located was residential.

The petitioner said some people had purchased some properties adjacent to the imambargah and started constructing a multi-storey plaza without an approved site plan and obtaining permission from the authorities concerned. He said the illegal construction activities had damaged the building of the 200-year-old imambargah.

He had submitted that haphazard and illegal construction and commercial activities in the Walled City were unconstitutional.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2016.