KARACHI, May 31: A restoration, renovation, repair and construction work is going on at the St. Joseph’s Convent and School, which is protected under the Sindh Cultural Heritage Protection Act, without mandatory permission, it is learnt.

According to sources, the work has been going on for the last many weeks and the concerned departments are either not aware of it or are protecting the violators by looking the other way.

The sources said that nobody, including the owners, could carry out any repair, renovation, restoration, or construction work in any of the structures protected under the Act, without taking permission from the advisory committee on the cultural heritage that is headed by Sindh chief secretary.

Violators of the Act could be sentenced to long prison terms with heavy fines.

The records of all the protected structures are kept and maintained at the Sindh Culture Department (SCD) which monitors the structures through the National Heritage Cell (NHC) established in the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA), or sometimes the department also gets reports through the civic agencies, including the cantonment boards, that regulate construction-related matters in their areas.

Responding to Dawn queries, the three concerned organizations — Karachi Cantonment Board (KCB), NHC, and the SCD — offered different views, raising suspicions that something was being hidden from the public.

The KCB executive officer, Najma Swalleh, told Dawn that work in the St Joseph’s Convent and School had been going on for the last many weeks and they had begun the work without informing the KCB.

However, sometime back when the KCB officials eventually came to know about the ongoing work they wrote a letter to the school asking about the nature of work and the school management assured the KCB that they would submit a detailed information in writing in this regard, Ms Swalleh added.

She said that many KCB officers, including some very senior ones, had visited the site and were satisfied with the verbal information provided by the school management. The KCB has given “verbal permission” to the management to continue the work and as soon as the information was provided in writing, a formal written permission would also be granted, she maintained, adding that the work in the meantime was continuing.

Responding to another question that the KCB could not give any permission to carry out work on any structure protected under the Cultural Heritage Protection Act unless the permission was issued by the advisory committee, Ms Swalleh said she had spoken to the authorities of the Sindh Culture Department and the National Heritage Cell chief, Mr Farhat, and they knew about the work and had no objection to it.

Responding to Dawn queries, NHC chief Farhatullah Qureshi said that he was not aware of any work going on in the protected structure.

However, he admitted that the St Joseph’s Convent and School building was protected under the Act. He made it clear that the NHC could not give any permission to start or continue any work. “The permission could only be issued by the Sindh Culture Department,” he added.

Sindh Culture Secretary Ashiq Hussain Memon, who will issue the permission if it was granted by the advisory committee, said that he was not aware of any work going on in the building.

He said that he had not been informed either by the NHC or the KCB. He said that the St Joseph’s Convent and School was a protected structure and a prior permission was mandatory to carry out any kind of work in it. He said the advisory committee had not issued any permission to start any kind of work in the St Joseph’s Convent and School. “In fact, the school management has, so far, not applied for any permission,” Mr Memon maintained.