Only a few passers-by in Kohati Bazaar would know that the building housing a school for visually-impaired children was previously a temple – Kalyan Das Temple. Though the temple was surrounded by classrooms of the ‘Government Qandeel School for Blind’, the magnificent building of the temple still stands high.

Mandir Kalyan Das at Kohati Bazaar is one of the largest temples of the garrison city. It was constructed in 1850 by a wealthy Hindu resident of Rawalpindi namely Kalyan Das of Suri family.

Standing outside the building, the board of Government Qandeel Secondary School for Visually Impaired Children is visible. Upon entering the main gate, the visitors are confronted with the sight of a magnificent architectural form that stands right in the middle of the school courtyard.

The temple consists of a ‘Pooja (worship) room’ with a veranda around it having four small rooms. The architecture seems to be inspired by the Mughals evident by the arches and the artwork on the walls.

Before colonisation, Rawalpindi was the base camp of Kashmir and mostly Hindu pilgrims from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Afghanistan used to rest at this temple on their way to Srinagar for the annual ‘Amarnath Pilgrimage’.

At that time, the temple had more than 100 rooms reserved for the pilgrims who could congregate, rest, perform ablution, and put on ceremonial robes to walk barefoot toward Kashmir via Murree.

The Saidpur Road from Banni Chowk in the past connected Rawalpindi with Murree from where people would travel to Kashmir via Kohala bridge.

This neighbourhood was also known as the residential area for Hindu and Sikh communities and proof of the interfaith harmony. In a radius of merely three kilometres, three major places of worship, Kalyan Das Temple, Gurudwara Bagh Sardaran and Jamia Masjid all in a 3km radius, existed.

In Banni, ‘Mai Veero Ka Taalab’ (pond of Mai Veero), Saidpuri Gate and Kartarpura are other known areas adjacent to the temple.

After partition, the Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India and the temple came under the administrative control of the government. Subsequently, the property of Sikhs and Hindus was handed over to the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) in the late 50s.

The ETPB gave some worship places to schools to maintain the dignity of these places and it was mandatory for these schools not to change the structure of the worship areas. The temple survived as a place of worship until 1958 when a school for the visually impaired started by Begum S.M.A. Farooq was shifted to the complex. However, the school was taken over by the government in 1975.

A new school building was erected by razing the ‘Baradari’ and the ‘Ashram’ in 1986 during Gen Ziaul Haq’s tenure.

Earlier this year, the provincial government renovated the school classrooms and hostel for the students but still neglected the renovation of the temple.

The school’s principal, Pervaiz Akhter, said the building served as a temple as well as resting place for pilgrims of Amarnath.

Assistant Commissioner City Hakim Khan said the temple was an asset and the district administration was compiling data to preserve the old sites in the garrison city along with this temple. He said the administration was working to preserve Haveli Sujan Singh and other temples in the city.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2024