LAHORE: Justice Shahid Karim of the Lahore High Court would hear on Thursday a petition seeking a direction to the government functionaries for the preservation of ‘Indus Queen’, a ship then head of the erstwhile Bahawalpur State Nawab Sadiq Khan Abbasi got built in the 18thcentury.

“The ship, also known as Sutlej Queen, plied the Sutlej river and had beenhost to many soirees hosted by the then nawab of Bahawalpur,” said the petition filed by Judicial Activism Panel’s chairman Azhar Siddique.

He said following the partition and then subsequent upon signing of the Indus Water Treaty, the boat sailed less through the river and after the abolition of the Bahawalpur state, the nawab gifted it to the government of Pakistan.

The petitioner says the nawab of the Bahawalpur got the magnificent ship built in 1867, which was utilized by his family in the Sutlej River and used to sail between the state and the then British-administered areas.

He said the ship was shifted from the Sutlej River to the “Ghazi Ghat Crossing” between Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh in 1958 and the next year was moved south further downstream to Mithankot to keep it safe from flood waters.

However, he said the floods of 2010 caused great damage to the ship. The petitioner pleaded that there was a need to preserve the heritage of our glorious past.

He asked the court to direct the respondents to bring the Indus Queen back to Bahawalpur and after its full restoration and preservation being an antiquity and cultural heritage be converted into a tourist attraction.

The secretary cabinet division, national history & literary heritage division, the chief secretary of Punjab and thedirectorgeneral of archeology department have been made respondents in the petition.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2020