HYDERABAD: Another pre-partition era residential building, proposed by the culture department for declaring it as heritage, was being demolished in Nain Ka Pir area of the city, off Khai Road, for the last few days.

The Sindh culture department has taken notice of it and asked the owner of the house to stop it. During a visit to the site on July 5 by this scribe, it was revealed that a considerable part of the building inside had been demolished. The debris was found on the site. Its face was, however, partly demolished.

Uzair, who introduced himself as son of the property owner, told Dawn that the building was too old and had developed cracks. “Its pieces were falling again after the recent spell of rain last month, therefore, we started demolishing it,” he said. He confirmed that an application was filed before the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) to declare it as dangerous.

He, however, had no answer when pressed as to how his family started demolishing it on its own when it was not declared dangerous yet. He gave evasive replies. His father was not present as he had proceeded with a tableeghi jamaat for preaching, according to him.

The building on the face of it had some unique construction features. A view that went viral a few days ago showed that labourers were using strong hammers to demolish its structure. According to Uzair’s claim, the building was in use of multiple owners within his family.

A notice was, however, pasted on one end of the building by the Sindh culture department’s Rukunuddin Qureshi, cartographer/focal person for heritage buildings Hyderabad. According to the notice, it was city survey number 2056 Ward-C located in Nain Ka Pir, Khai road.

A July 3 report addressed by Mr Qureshi to the assistant director (heritage) of culture, tourism, antiquities & archives department, said he had visited the site and found that the owner lately started demolition work of this ‘pre-partition building’ bearing CS No. 2056/C.

His report said “The architecture of that ground plus one building has unique construction, thus deserved to be declared as ‘protected’ and its face has partly been demolished. It was built of burnt brick with special size provided by four floral design pillar on each square structure,” said report.

Mr Qureshi met owner Faisal Qureshi to apprise him of the architectural value of the building and asked him to stop work. Answering a query about the SBCA, the owner told Qureshi that he had filed application to the building authority but he had no document to share.

He said the building in question was a pre-partition era structure having unique façade, therefore, the authorities and SBCA should be approached to get demolition work stopped on an urgent basis and they should not issue any demolition order without consultation of the culture department for saving one of the cultural jewels of Hyderabad.

According to a culture official, Naqash Sahito, the building’s survey was done previously and a proposal was submitted to the culture department’s Technical Committee for inclusion/declaration of that property in the heritage list. He said that work remained stopped on the site on Monday. Naqash was not sure about its actual period of construction but hinted that it might have been built in the early 20th century.

A letter was also addressed by the assistant director (heritage) Karachi to the SBCA’s regional director on July 4 to get demolition work on the subject plot halted immediately. If any permission regarding demolition or construction work on it was given, the same be suspended until decided by technical/advisory committee.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2025