MANSEHRA, Sept 10: Speakers at the 10th National Conference on Pakistan Archaeology demanded of the government to implement the Antiquity Act in its true spirit to check smuggling of relics and antiques from the country.

About 80 per cent antiquities and artefacts of various civilizations of Pakistan were being smuggled abroad unabatedly, they said at the concluding session of the three-day conference on Pakistan Archaeology at the Bara Gali Summer Camp, some 65 km from here, on Sunday.

Renowned archaeologists, scholars and cultural delegates from across the country participated in the conference which was jointly organised by the Hazara University and Cultural Heritage for Future Generations.

The main objective of the conference was to find out the ways to preserve the rich cultural heritage and archaeological sites.

Speakers, including the chairman Wapda Shakil Durrani, vice chancellor Hazara University and archaeologist Dr Ehsan Ali, archaeologists Faryal Gohar, Col (retd) Mohammad Mushtaq, Javaid Hussein, Makeen Khan, Jawaid Hussein, Saleh Mohammad, Rizwan Azeem, Tahir Khan, Riffat Dar, Saleh Mohammad Khan, Pervaiz Ali Shah and others strongly criticised the polices of various governments during the last 60 years and stressed to bring major changes in the existing policies and laws of the country to protect the national heritage and antiquities.

The conference unanimously adopted the recommendations and suggested that the federal department of archaeology should share its antiquities, which were just decaying in its various stores, with various archaeological museums under different organizations.

The participants observed that the archaeological heritage, especially in and around the big urban centres, were highly endangered by encroachments, developmental projects and human vandalism and recommended that the Antiquity Act should be implemented in letter and spirit.

The speakers said that due to construction of the Basha Dam not only thousands of families would be displaced but also more than 40,000 archaeological sites would be submerged in the reservoir.

The conference demanded that the Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment should be made mandatory before undertaking any project, which has potential threat to any form of cultural heritage.

It proposed that preservation of the cultural heritage of Pakistan should be given higher priority in the National Conservation Policy.