PESHAWAR, Dec 15: The mausoleum of Rehman Baba, the great saint and mystic poet of Pushto, suffered a colossal damage when its precious and historical tomb-stone was dismantled by the now-defunct Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) during the construction of Rehman Memorial Library complex in Hazrakhawani graveyard in the Peshawar city.

The tomb-stone, called Ta’aweez, was gifted to the Mazar of the poet by King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan, revealed literary figures and Pushto writers to Dawn.

The Ta’aweez, as priceless in terms of its value as its traditional and historical significance, was mercilessly decimated and the rare slabs were either broken into pieces and discarded in the backyard of the complex, or were stolen due to the negligence of the Peshawar Development Authority, said Abad Hassan.

“The loss which the grave suffered during the construction of the dome can, perhaps, never be made up for,” said Khawaja Mohammad Khan Saail, a renowned Pashto poet, writer and critic.

Saail said the PDA authorities did not even bother to re-construct the broken grave after the dome was built. The dome could have been constructed without dismantling the grave, he observed.

When the project was inaugurated in 1994 by the then president of Pakistan, the grave was wrapped in a green-coloured piece of cloth to cover the immense loss. “If you remove the cloth, you would find that the authorities never bothered to readjust the precious stone-slabs,” he regretted.

Sher Shah Tarkhwi, patron of the Rehman Adabi Tolana, said the tomb-stone was rare not only in the sense that it was donated by the king of Afghanistan, but also that it was a sign of the Afghans indebtedness to the great poet.

Sources in the Archives Department said at the time of the construction of the dome, the grave was broken and the tomb-stones were removed.

Another source in the Auqaf Department said that the dome could have been erected without having stripped the grave of the traditional Ta’aweez.