PESHAWAR, Nov 27: Members of Hindu community have blamed minority MPA Kishwar Kumar for illegally closing a historical temple in Dera Ismail Khan and announced to stop his participation in religious rituals till opening of the worship place.  

A number of Hindu elders and office-bearers of different organisations said on Tuesday that the temple was hundreds years old and people from far-off areas used to visit it in the past. They alleged that a local MPA Kishwar Kumar had now taken the worship place into his custody and banned entry of the entire community.

Chaudhry Kishwar Lal Shami, Kisshan Lal, Rajish Kumar, Ram Lal, Kaka Ram Lal and Narish Lal Bhatti claimed that one of senior citizens Hameed Lal Bhatti, who had shifted from Dera Ismail Khan to Peshawar 30 years ago, was not allowed to spend a night at the temple for worship as his last wish.

“We hired a taxi and took our elder Hameed Lal Bhatti to the temple, but it was closed and after many requests to the MPA through his men we were allowed only for a short time. As the elderly man came to know about this he started weeping over stubbornness of the lawmaker and asked us to take him back to Peshawar,” said Haroon Sarb Diyal, Chairman All Pakistan Hindu Rights Movement.

Mr Diyal told Dawn that the Hindu community had decided to ban the MPA’s entry into all religious ceremonies as nobody had the right to lock religious places for personal use.

He said that the MPA was elected on ticket of JUI-F and it was duty of the party’s leadership to take stern notice of his behaviour. He appealed to the Peshawar High Court chief justice to take suo motu notice of the incident and order opening of the temple to the community.