Karak Hindu temple reconstruction begins

Renovation to be completed in three months at a cost of Rs30 million

PESHAWAR:

The construction work on the Hindu temple has been started in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Karak district.

The historic Hindu temple had been vandalised by a mob led by a local cleric Maulana Sharifullah of JUI-F on December 30^th after Sharifullah made an inflammatory speech at a local Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) rally and asked people to march on the temple.

An extension was underway at the temple, which had been attacked by the same cleric in the 1990s, and some locals who wanted to sell their property at exorbitant prices to the Hindu community turned the extension into a religious conflict.

Read: Hindu community pardons accused in Karak temple attack

Talking to The Express Tribune Minority MPA Wazir Zada said that the attack issue had been solved and all the people involved in Karak temple attack had been pardoned by the Hindu community due to the direct involvement of Chief Minister Mahmood Khan.

“Government has issued a tender for the reconstruction of the Samadhi and temple at a cost of Rs30 million and it will be completed in three months,” he said, adding that the local community will not interfere with the affairs of the temple in any way.

“We will form a committee of the local residents which will be tasked with the protection of the building as well as the Hindus visiting the area. Police will also be deployed for the security of the building,” he said, adding that no repeat of the December 30th attack will be tolerated.

“The tussle between the Hindu and local Muslim community has been solved. There will be no issue or hurdle from the local residents as they have been pardoned by the Hindu community on the condition that complete religious freedom under the constitution of Pakistan will be allowed to all including the Hindu community,” said Wazir Zada.

Read more: Top court seeks timeline for Karak temple rebuilding

Terri was a former princely state which is inhabited by Khattak Pakhtuns and Hindus in large number lived in the town in the past. They were mostly rich traders. All of them, however, migrated to India soon after partition following the anti-Hindu riots in which their businesses and shops were gutted and houses attacked for plunder.

With their migration all the temples were also left abandoned and unattended.

Terri Samadi is attributed to a local yogi who used to meditate there and he breathed his last under a tree after which local Hindu families established a Samadhi in his memory.

The Supreme Court had taken a suo moto notice of the attack and asked the main culprit Maulana Sharifullah to rebuild the temple with his own money