LAHORE: A number of citizens on Saturday expressed their serious concern the way the path for the Orange Line train is being built while, what they claimed, endangering historical monuments and other buildings, asking the government to better opt for tunnel boring from the tomb of Zebun Nisa to the Shalamar Gardens to avoid all such threats.

The Lahore High Court had asked the provincial government to stop construction of the path close to the historical monuments. And an appeal is pending a decision with the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Speaking at a news conference here at the Lahore Press Club, they said the tunnel boring would preserve the entire valuable heritage and the character of the city.

“Cities all over the world with heritage use bored tunneling. The remainder of the project can be as is, in the form of elevated viaduct till before the tomb of Zebun Nisa and the Shalamar Gardens. The Punjab government can thus complete this section of the mass transit from the outer areas into the heart of Lahore. While in the heart of Lahore with heritage sites, either a bus transit system or underground bored tunnel option can be adopted,” said Prof Marriam Husain while elaborating how the present form of construction was harmful to the historical and residential buildings along the route of the train.

Shabana, a resident of Maharaja Building near the tomb of Mauj Darya, broke down while narrating how she was being forced to leave her home as against petty amount.

“My mother has died of the shock of leaving our home. I too have become a heart patient. My building is not in the path of the train, they merely want to grab it. I would better die than leaving my shelter,” the crying woman said asking the chief minister to show mercy on her.

The speakers said she was not alone and represented hundreds of others who still faced the threat of surrendering their abodes.

Those who spoke at the press conference included Raheemul Haq, Dr Ajaz Anwar, architect Imrana Tiwana, Father Bonny Mendes and Ms Farida Shaheed.

They said the press conference on the Supreme Court proceedings of the Orange Line case, was being held at the request of all those citizens of Lahore who love their city and have been struggling to protect its heritage and cultural identity as well as their homes from destruction.

They said of concern was that construction towards heritage sites had continued despite the LHC judgment requiring a review of the project before proceeding. Instead of complying, the government had spent nine months trying to overturn the judgment in the SC while continuing construction, they alleged.

They said civil society lawyers Asma Jahangir, Azhar Siddique and Khwaja Ahmad Hosain, rejected the government’s ‘fait accompli’ argument as a dangerous precedent that justified the violation not only of established rules and procedures but also enabled the subversion of the country’s laws on the grounds that ‘now that the deed is partially done let’s complete it regardless of its legality’.

Pointing out the deliberate inaccuracies in terms of distances and vibration levels in the Nespak report, design maps, they showed how the train, if allowed with its present design and technology, would result in certain damage and in some cases, the destruction of monuments and buildings that are the city’s identity.

They said there were 11 key sites along the heritage ‘corridor’ including the Shalamar Gardens, St Andrews Church where the cut and cover construction entailed the partial demolition of the building and the 16th century Mauj Darya Mazar whose foundations lay less than two feet from the proposed construction.

The already fragile Chauburji, where the soil was showing signs of subsidence due to digging within the 200ft perimeter, the GPO building, and the façade of Lakshmi Mansion seemed to be the next in line to go – if not immediately, in the near future as none of these buildings would withstand the high vibration impact of the construction phase.

Assurances by the LDA that ‘damaged’ buildings would be ‘rebuilt’ or ‘repaired’ are farcical as they underscore the government’s inability to distinguish between heritage sites and modern buildings. Chauburji, Lakshmi Mansion, Gulabi Bagh, Buddu da Awa and Shalamar would suffer high visual impact as the viaduct pylons would block their view and diminish their value.

The Shalamar Gardens had an outstanding universal value as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The certain damage to the Mughal water works and hydraulic tank entailed the very real risk of the Shalamar and Lahore Fort being delisted as World Heritage sites. This would impact negatively the sites’ potential to earn revenue through tourism. The government’s failure to issue visas to the Unesco’s Reactive Mission to Pakistan to assess the safety of the Shalamar World Heritage Site was of concern and a tacit admission that the train design failed to protect the visual and structural integrity of the site, they said.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2017