KARACHI, May 21: Work to lift the debris of a church wall and garbage dumped along it began on Tuesday so that construction material could be brought to rebuild the wall that had collapsed a day ago after being hit by a Karachi Metropolitan Corporation vehicle.
Located in Saddar, the 145-year-old St Andrew’s Church is legally protected under the Sindh Cultural Heritage (Preservation) Act, which prescribes long prison terms and heavy fines for those causing damage to any premises protected under the act.
While a technical body that advises the Sindh government on issues relating to the act on Tuesday recommended to the KMC that reconstruction of the complete wall was unavoidable and should be taken up immediately, the district south metropolitan corporation maintained that only the (125-foot-long) portion of the wall that fell down would be rebuilt.
The place of worship of the religious minority community was visited by government officials after the Monday morning incident of wall collapse grabbed the headlines.
Responding to Dawn queries, Reverend Yusuf Fazal, Presbyter in charge of the Scotch Church of St Andrew’s, said the church had hired a contractor to construct the wall and so far the labourers had cleared the debris and the garbage on Tuesday so that construction material could be brought and construction started.
He said that an official of the district south metropolitan corporation, Mr Asim, had visited the church on Monday night and another official, Mr Saleem, who arrived on Tuesday morning, gave Rs20,000 to the contractor hired by the church. Reverend Fazal said when it came into his notice, he asked the contractor to return the money to the official concerned, because the church did not want money.
“We just want that the wall be re-constructed and the garbage dump set up along the church wall be shifted,” he said. He added that the entire wall had been damaged by KMC vehicles lifting the garbage and needed repair.
Speaking to Dawn, the district south metropolitan corporation chief Mustafa Jamal Qazi, who is also deputy commissioner of the district south, said his officials had told him that work on the collapsed wall had started and it would be completed within the next few days or at the most within a week. In reply to a question, he made it clear that only the portion of the wall that had collapsed on Monday morning would be rebuilt.
He said that the work was being carried out by the church.
He said his officials had informed the church that they would construct a brick wall but the church wanted an RCC wall, which was expensive. Finally, after a discussion the church management and the officials reached an agreement and the latter contributed Rs30,000 along with construction material to the church, Mr Qazi claimed.
However, he said, he was open to talks so that the issue could be settled amicably.
Meanwhile, a press release of the Sindh antiquities department issued states that the technical committee, which advises the Sindh government on matters related to the Sindh Cultural Heritage (Preservation) Act, 1994, in its meeting on Tuesday morning expressed grave concern over the church wall collapse incident.
The committee called upon the KMC administrator to immediately order the reconstruction of the wall, while seeking technical advice from the advisory committee for Sindh culture heritage.
The committee laid emphasis on the documentation of the damage for the record.
A few members of the committee also visited the site of the damage on Tuesday morning and their initial findings revealed that the substandard repairs over time, additions made on top of the wall, the way of garbage collection and neglect had rendered the wall vulnerable, thus a slight push was enough to cause it to collapse.
The committee recommended that the full length re-erection of the entire wall was unavoidable, and should be taken up immediately, adds the antiquities department press release.
