MIANWALI, Sept 16: Sometimes a particular incident brings into limelight the glorious past of a place fallen into oblivion. The recent registration of a criminal case against the administration of the Government High School, Mianwali, at the behest of one president of the Blind Association here regarding an occurrence that allegedly took place in the boarding house of the institution, illustrated this phenomenon.

Before looking into the facts of the case, the history of this old boarding house should be of interest to the readers. It was originally constructed as an inn (sarai) by philanthropist and social worker Lala Bodh Raj, a businessman of Isakhel (Mianwali district) in the year 1925 at a cost of Rs16,000. The inn comprised a double-storey building constructed over a plot of nearly two kanals.

It had 15 rooms on the ground floor and three rooms on the first floor. Its main wooden gate, 20ft high and 10ft wide and opening into a closed street, is still intact.

The work of Lala Bodh Raj was considered so commendable that the government awarded him a cash prize of Rs1,000, besides a robe and an appreciation certificate. Subsequently, the inn was donated in 1927 as a boarding house to Ram Mohan Roy High School in Mianwali, the highest educational institution of this district.

After partition, Ram Mohan Roy High School was renamed as the Government High School, Mianwali, in the year 1950. Students of the school coming from far-flung areas used to be accommodated as boarders in the boarding house. A good number of celebrities of the district had been living in this facility during their studies at this school. Since the boarding house was declared as an evacuee trust property, it was vested in the name of the Auqaf department. Later on in the year 1980, it was duly transferred to the education department against an amount of Rs50,000. So the occupation of boarding house by the Government High School was legally confirmed.

Some years ago, two empty rooms of the hostel were handed over to the Blind Association, Mianwali, on the request of the deputy commissioner on humanitarian grounds. The so-called president of the association, Samiullah Shah, having ill designs of illegally taking possession of the hostel forced the students, peon and sweeper of the place to run away by levelling different allegations against them. Mr Shah exploited his disability for winning the sympathies of the district administration through false stories of highhandedness of others towards him just to prolong his occupation.

Mr Shah illegally occupied the hostel for years in the name of the School for the Blind, but used it for renting out rooms to Afghan refugees working as labourers, besides indulging in criminal activities on the premises. Many complaints in this regard were made by social workers of the city to the authorities concerned but all went unheeded.

The hostel building became dilapidated owing to neglect of the school administration. Most of the rooms had fallen down and the material had reportedly been misappropriated by Mr Shah. The latter had been receiving considerable amounts from NGOs and other donors in the name of the blind, but allegedly misappropriated the donations. In fact, Mr Shah was not blind by birth; he had lost his eyesight in an explosion during preparation of fireworks. Subsequently, he proved to be shrewd enough to make his disability a source of his ill-earning by associating with a group of five or six other blind people.

His character became apparent when the new school principal felt the necessity of redeeming the boarding house for its students and teachers. It was conveyed to Mr Shah through the intervention of the DCO, the EDO (education) and the EDO (community development) to vacate the rooms of the hostel, earlier misused by him. Thereupon, Mr Shah managed self-inflicted injuries and procured a medicolegal certificate of tooth loss and got registered an FIR against the principal and his staff.

It is interesting to note that the DCO and the DPO even after coming to know of the falsehood of the alleged occurrence are reluctant to cancel the case and are rather trying to arrange a patch-up between the school administration and Mr Shah because of fear of the nuisance of Mr Shah and his patrons.

In any case, all social circles of the district have appreciated the initiative taken by the principal to redeem the historic boarding house for meeting residential requirements of the students. Now it is for the district and provincial governments to extend financial help to the principal for making the hostel worth living for the boarders.

It will be a great service to the cause of education in this district. It is also suggested that the Blind Association may be attached to the School of Deaf and Dumb already existing here.