KOHAT: The government’s decision to renovate and convert a school building in the city into a temple for Hindu worshippers has attracted criticism from the religious and trade circles and residents of the locality.

The business community and Sunni Supreme Council at a jirga held in the hujra (guest house) of its chairman former MNA Javed Ibraheem Paracha announced to stage a protest rally in the main bazaar on Thursday (today) against the decision.

The temple existed before the establishment of the primary school there in the Hindu Mohallah whose name had been changed to Mohallah Sikandar Shaheed two decades ago.

The jirga condemned the opening of a temple building by winding up the school.

The government had converted the ground portion of the temple into a primary school on the demand of the local people.

Its upper portion is still intact.

Javed Paracha said that the opening of the Kohat temple was part of the 400 Hindu worship places identified throughout the country.

The jirga condemned the CM’s adviser on education MPA Ziaullah Bangash for announcing to open the said temple, which had been a school building for decades now.

Mr Rasheed, an aged person who worked as embroider for which the mohallah is famous since independence, told this scribe that the school building was a full-fledged temple whose three ground-floor rooms were converted into classes and a big tree was cut down for a playground. It had halls and rooms on the ground and first floors.

He said that the street was called Hindu Mohallah because it had been the abode to Hindu population before partition where they had constructed temples inside their houses.

The remains of those worship places were still present there.

No new house had been constructed by the poor people who were allotted these places by the Aquaf department after partition in 1947.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2019