August 28, 2006	Monday	Sha'aban 3, 1427

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KASUR, Aug 27: The generality of people has hauled the Baba Bulleh Shah shrine administration and the local Auqaf authorities over the coals for showing disrespect to about five-century-old graveyard by raising a death well, circus platform and installing swings and other recreational facilities for the visitors to the Sufi poet’s Urs.

The three-day annual Urs of Hazrat Baba Bulleh Shah began after the chaddar-laying ceremony on Saturday and is concluding today.

It is learnt that the authorities concerned have been holding the graveyard in the lowest esteem for the last decade or so. This time it has made all the arrangements against a paltry contract of Rs420,000.

Located adjacent to the shrine complex, it has now many a grave either effaced or defaced as it continues to be misused over the years. On some occasions when the complaints of the public and religious circles got momentum, such activities had been shifted to the playground of the Government Boys Degree College.

Kasur District Bar Association President Chaudhry Munir Ahmad, PPP leaders Dr Akram and Yaseen Lumberdar and Advocate Babu Asghar Ali, among others, have criticised the officials concerned for misusing the graveyard. They said the degree college playground was far off the shrine and, therefore, attracted very few people who pay homage to Baba Bulleh Shah.

Besides the entertainment avenue, scores of local shops in and around the Darbar do a roaring business in the Urs days.

A major area of the graveyard during the fair days faces a great deal of damage as heavy transport vehicles, including loaders, use the premises to facilitate the contractor. At least 10-15 loader trucks and mini-vans remain parked all days through and the drivers and conductors find a card-playing field.

The graveyard is also used to organise political meetings during the election days. Also making use of the spacious place are women and children who make mooras (straw sofas and chairs).

Worse still, it serves as a volleyball playground on Friday evenings — a local holiday when people from many parts of the city crowd it and while away.

Nor is there any check on goats and donkeys grazing in the graveyard. Yet another menace afflicting the place is the presence of addicts who have found a permanent abode in the graveyard.

Auqaf manager Syed Afzaal Naqvi told this correspondent that the contractor had been strictly asked not to misuse the graveyard and he would be proceeded against according to law.

He said the addicts and all those vandalizing the sacred place had been ejected out of the place many times but they return to the place after greasing the palms of the police.

Mazhabee Amoor Committee chairman Haji Muhammad Abdul Hamid told Dawn that he had opposed the idea and requested the DCO to take appropriate action but to no avail.