‘Lawaris Qabristan’ — the final abode of countless freedom fighters

Some graves have almost vanished without a trace due to neglect and lack of maintenance

RAWALPINDI:

A very few residents of the garrison city know about the existence of the oldest graveyard where countless freedom fighters, who lost their lives resisting the British rule, are buried.

Next to the judicial complex and Jinnah Park Rawalpindi, the almost hidden graveyard, where children and women are also buried, is currently being used to bury unclaimed bodies.

The 175-year-old cemetery in the Cantonment Board Chaklala area, which is not accessible to the general public, is called "Lawaris Qabristan” (abandoned graveyard).

In this cemetery, abandoned bodies found from all over Rawalpindi are buried here as trust. For 150 years, these bodies were buried by successive caretakers but now Edhi Foundation carries out the burial of unknown and unclaimed bodies. There are about 2,963 graves in this cemetery.

A large number of these graves have been washed away by the rains. There are also graves of newborns. In addition to this, a large number of women have also been buried here.

The abandoned graveyard is located in the most sensitive area on over two acres. There are also dense old trees here.

The graveyard is surrounded by the Army House, Jinnah Park, Judicial Officers Colony and Askari and Murree Brewery's oldest factory.

Closed-circuit cameras are installed at various places here to monitor every single visitor day and night. One of the main reasons for the establishment of this cemetery here was that the old Central Jail Rawalpindi was adjacent to it.

At that time, this cemetery was also a part of the jail. If someone died in the prison, they were buried here. When the British executed freedom fighters, they used to bury them here. Due to being the large prison of the garrison, prisoners from other provinces were also buried here.

According to the caretaker, 11 people were buried in the cemetery this year so far.

This abandoned graveyard is under the control of the military administration of Jinnah Park. After the jail was abolished, a part of the area was made part of Jinnah Park.

The cemetery was established during the British period in 1847. During the freedom movement, the British regime sent freedom fighters from Mumbai, Lucknow, Delhi, Bengal, UP, CP, Kashmir, interior Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and other distant cities of the subcontinent to this jail where they would be tortured, killed and later buried in this graveyard.

Muhammad Aslam, the caretaker of the cemetery, also revealed that during the digging for new graves, mass graves were also found here, which were from the British era.

He said that the remains of unknown heroes were handcuffed who were found in these mass graves. Five handcuffed remains of four to five people were found in one mass grave, he said adding that these freedom fighters were buried handcuffed after being tortured.

"During the British era, grave marks were removed after burial. The bodies were piled one over the other, many of them still handcuffed and chained in death," he said.

Traces of most of these graves have, however, almost completely vanished due to neglect and lack of maintenance.

The caretaker said that even today if a new grave is dug in any place, human bones are frequently found. This is the only graveyard in Rawalpindi which is not accessible to any local citizen and interestingly, 95 per cent of the population does not even know where the abandoned graveyard is located and what is its history.

This scribe also had to struggle to get permission to visit the cemetery. This could be the only cemetery in Rawalpindi where no lamp or incense sticks may have been lit in its 175-year.

No one visits the cemetery to pray for the departed souls or shower rose petals on graves and no one has ever cleaned any grave. More than five-year-old graves are demolished to make space for the new bodies.

Due to the lack of maintenance, bushes and weeds have grown in abundance in the graveyard. Snakes and mongooses and other insects also crawl freely. The cemetery plunges into the darkness with the sunset. The old graves sink in heavy monsoon rains as rainwater enters them.

According to the caretaker, 31 bodies buried in the cemetery as a ‘trust’ were taken out by their relatives.

He said that police also keep a record of abandoned corpses before they were handed over to the Edhi Foundation for burial.

In the middle of the cemetery, there is also a large and airy mortuary. It also appears to be a 175-year-old structure. The Mughal style architecture has wide windows, 12 doors and large bright openings for ventilation.

Being of great antiquity, traces of its best buildings still exist.

Despite being turned into a ghost bungalow, its architectural glory still stands today. The abandoned graveyard holds the history of a large number of freedom fighters from 1857 onwards, and the people killed in fake police encounters.