SPRING comes reluctantly to Ziarat. In the silence of winter, the valley’s juniper forests stand frozen against a grey sky. But when the warmth does come, it does so with the swagger of an exhibitionist. Trees burst into blossom and life crawls out of hibernation; the shutters go up on tea stalls, schools and offices open and proprietors air out hotel rooms.

Tourists, upon arrival, turn right to take the winding path up the hill to see the magnificent building whose image has become synonymous with this tourist town in Balochistan, indeed the province itself.

Spring is the season of ladybirds in Ziarat. But this year, in the verdant lawns of Jinnah’s residency, they are being trampled under the feet of not tourists but carpenters, masons, architects and engineers. At the moment, nothing awaits visitors here but the shock of a national monument gone.

They will have to wait until Aug 14, Independence Day, when the Balochistan government will unveil a restored building where the nation’s founder spent the last days of his life. It is of significance, the date. It was the night of Aug 14 last year when Balochistan Liberation Army insurgents burned down the building, leaving behind a melted hull of the grand Raj-era monument.

“The decision to reopen the residency to the public on Aug 14 is meant to convey our determination to the insurgents,” says the provincial chief secretary, Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad, who leads the executive committee tasked with the rehabilitation of the Ziarat Residency. “We want to show the will of the people of Balochistan,” he says. “The federal government or the army could have rebuilt the monument. The army wanted to rebuild it on a war footing, but we said no. The provincial government will do it to show our sense of ownership.”

The process of reconstruction started late in March; the monument had to be torn down in order to rebuild. The damage caused by the fire was extensive and the workers — driven by the desire to raise the building in its original shape — had to salvage not just reusable material but rebuild in a manner that places every stone and girder in its original location.

“What took us so long was the inventory process,” says engineer Abdul Jabbar Khan, technical adviser to the Ziarat Residency Executive Committee. “We are not developing something new but rebuilding the residency in its original shape. It has to be same material, the same elements, the same design replicated to a tee, with great attention to detail on even locks, hinges and bolts.”

The residency building, originally built as a sanatorium for British soldiers in 1892 before becoming the governor general’s residence, was made of limestone blocks. When firefighters sprayed the structure with water, it cracked the masonry that had heated up intensely after hours of being on fire. Several explosions took place that night as the flames raged, shattering a structure already damaged by the 2008 earthquake. More than 60 per cent of the original building had been hewn out of wood.

Through the months after the attack, architects and engineers recreated the monument in building plans. Even as workers tore down the building, rocks were ferried in from the Domaira quarry where the original stones came from.

“The rebuilding of the residency will cost about Rs62 million,” says Sher Khan Bazai, commissioner of the Sibi division whose office oversees development and security related to the residency. “The major cost is of imported wood — Burma teak. The lime plaster available in Quetta is of inferior quality. We are importing it from Iran.”

Activity at the heavily guarded location is frenzied, the air abuzz with the cacophony of electric saws, concrete mixtures and stone breakers. As engineers and labourers work on the structure, a number of emaciated masons sit breaking rocks near a flowerbed where the season’s first narcissi have raised their proud yellow heads.

“People from all over came to see the residency,” says Manan, 56, the master mason from Ziarat who has helped with the restoration here twice before. “They came from Karachi, Lahore and London. It was our asset.”

While the authorities are caught up by the fever to reconstruct, the possibility that the residency may be targeted again is the undertow that tugs at their buoyant resolve. There are plans to put in place scanners, watch towers, metal detectors, firefighters and a bomb disposal unit on the premises. Already, major entry and exit points to the valley are manned by FC, Levies and police personnel.

Ziarat, a Pakhtun-dominated district, was never a security flashpoint — which is why perhaps the district administration had let its guard down. “There are no Baloch insurgents,” says Jan Mohammad Buledi, spokesperson for the provincial government. “However, we will be making robust security arrangements so that nothing of the sort happens again.”

A constant stream of top officials continue visiting the residency site to monitor progress; the structure, bit by bit, is being raised meticulously, a phoenix rising out of its ashes. With the deadline approaching fast, workers will be required to work the night shift. And the strain shows.