KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the secretary of the culture, tourism and antiquities department to submit a list of all the heritage and ancient properties located in the province.

The SHC also ordered the secretary to notify a committee to frame the criteria of rehabilitation and promotion of the heritage sites as well as to examine the standards of recruitment in the culture department.

Terming the formation of a tourism police force in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa a unique initiative, Justice Salahuddin Panhwar of the SHC asked the Sindh culture department to also explore such an idea in the province.

The bench issued these directives while hearing two lawsuits filed about the heritage properties in the province.

Bench asks Sindh culture dept to explore idea of setting up tourism police along the lines of KP

When the matter was taken up for hearing, Khalid Chachar, the secretary of the culture, tourism, antiquities and archives department, and other officials appeared in court and filed a report in the light of the last order.

The bench noted that all historical buildings and sites were a gem of humanity and preserving such places would be important for tourism and economy.

The court directed the secretary to submit a list of heritage and ancient properties declared so under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act, 1904 along with notifications on the next date of hearing.

It ordered the secretary to classify such properties having heritage and antiquities value in three categories.

“The first category shall consist of all those properties which were declared under the Act of 1904, second category shall include all those properties which are public properties and have been declared ancient/heritage and third category shall mention properties owned by the private persons,” the court order added.

The bench ordered constitution of a committee, to be headed by the culture secretary, to frame the criteria of rehabilitation work, submit a mechanisms with regard to the provision of information, ensure providing all facilities to tourists and also examine the procedure of recruitment in the department from BPS-17 onwards and amend the rules and bye-laws within two months.

It further asked the culture department to recruit tour guides as per the orders passed by the SHC on various occasions and to introduce more efficient modern methods of transmitting information with scientific tools, informing the tourists about history of Mohenjo-daro, Bhanbhore, Kot Diji, Rohri Hills and other such places.

The court was informed that Rs1.5 million had been deposited two years ago with the Board of Revenue (BoR) on account of keeping the mutation entries on record of rights of such sites in favour of the culture department, but no fruitful results had been achieved yet.

The SHC directed senior member BoR and deputy commissioners concerned to get those mutation entries effected, preferably within two months without fail, else contempt proceedings will be initiated against delinquent officials.

It also asked the culture secretary to provide a list of such properties to the officials of BoR.

A lawyer for one of the defendants contended that in the British-era, clock towers/Ghanta Ghar were established in the heart of cities like Sukkur, Hyderabad, Shikarpur, etc. but the culture department as well as the local governments had failed to maintain them.

Adjourning the hearing till Feb 14, the bench directed the DCs of respective districts to ensure removal of encroachments around such places within two months and maintain the same along with the clocks.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2023