Stolen relics: Hearing of holy slippers case today

Petitioner says has gone barefoot since 2002, to protest authorities' failure to arrest thieves, recover shoes.


Rana Yasif January 29, 2014
File photo of Badshahi Masjid, the mosque from which the slippers were stolen. PHOTO: AFP

LAHORE:


An additional district and sessions judge fixed January 29 for the hearing of a petition seeking the recovery of the slippers attributed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) stolen from Badshahi Masjid. The petition followed a police report stating that no suspects had been identified since the theft in 2002.


The court had sought comments from Tibbi City police on a petition filed by Pir SA Jafri asking the court for a direction to police to submit interim challan of the suspects.

The petitioner said he had gone barefoot and worn black clothes since 2002, to protest the authorities’ failure to arrest the thieves and recover the holy relic.

Police said they had investigated 23 employees of the Badshahi Masjid and found Hafeez-ur-Rehman (guard) and Jan Muhammad (attendant) to be negligent.

They said a newspaper report, saying that some of the relics were taken to Brunei in connivance with the Auqaf department but not brought back, had turned out false. Some employees at the mosque had told police that certain former officials were responsible for the theft.

An inquiry established that this too was false and the result of disagreements between current and former management.

The police report stated that around 3,000 tourists visited the Badshahi Masjid every month.

After questioning many regular visitors they still had not found any leads.

On direction of the Punjab chief minister, the case was assigned to a special inspection team, which also did not lead to any suspects. More than 10 teams, consisting of SPs, SSPs and DSPs, had been constituted.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2014.

COMMENTS (1)

LuvPak! | 10 years ago | Reply

I bet some high level government official has them in his drawing room for show. Same kind of people who emptied Pak Museums, Buddha excavations, Shahi Qila and Historic Masajids tiles, glass & marbles.. Poor man has little use for such artifact unless some rich person has paid him for that. Hopefully they are not already on plane to some more richer person. Corruption & greed has reached such an height that guards who are hired to protect are already selling Endangered animals from restricted park and sanctuaries to the rich & affluent collectors. The Question is shall you are a religious person just to run for your life or a modern trained person just to loose your property?

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