PESHAWAR, Sept 8: Conservators have expressed concern over what they call the ‘cosmetic’ conservation work going on for about three years at the Mahabat Khan Mosque, a fine specimen of the Mughal architecture. In 1980s, the then chief minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao during a visit to the mosque had directed that the original brick flooring be replaced with marbles.

However, cracks have started appearing in the structure owing to dampness.

“These cracks were covered with mortar, but it is not durable,” said a conservator.

“One fine feature of the Mughal-era buildings is that they have been built in balance shapes and on raised platforms to make them prominent,” an archaeologist said.

However, our the decades illegal structures have been made around the mosque and under small openings that had been provided for ventilation. The Auqaf department, the administrative body executing the conservation work, has rented out these openings to shopkeepers.

A conservator said that encroachments and marble work would add to dampness which could threaten the very structure of the building. He said there was no proper sewerage system and water draining out from the mosque’s pond remained collected underneath the structure.

On June 25, 2004, a portion towards northeast corner of the mosque collapsed owing to dampness.

“There should be consolidation work instead of cosmetic repairs and originality of the historical place should be preserved,” another conservator said.

Archaeologists have expressed doubts about Auqaf department’s capability to carryout the conservation work.

Project director Nadeem Ahmed said conservation was a specialized job that should have been entrusted to a qualified conservator.

He said the marble floor and the pond were no threat to the structure. He observed that ventilation through the openings was just a fiction as there was nothing to prove that these openings actually were made for the ventilation purpose.

He said the conservation work going on for the past three years was scheduled to have been completed by June 2005.