KARACHI, May 11: The Governor’s House has expressed concern over reports that the department of archeology and museums, is winding up its offices in Karachi and relocating with 150,000 precious artefacts, vulnerable books and manuscripts and other historical material to the Lahore Fort.
“This amounts to depriving the people of Sindh of their historical and archeological heritage and is creating resentment among concerned quarters.
“Such a move would further deplete resources available for study and research in related subjects to the young scholars of the province,” said a spokesperson for the Governor’s House.
“The provincial secretary culture and tourism has been directed to take up the mater with the relevant authorities in the federal government on a priority basis,” he added.
The secretary culture and tourism, Sindh, Ashiq Hussain Memon, has written a letter to the federal ministry about reported shifting of research central library and headquarter of director archeology and museum, from Karachi to Lahore.
In his letter, the secretary is learnt to have highlighted the importance of the issue for Karachiities. He recalled in the letter that this issue was also raised in the past but was dropped on the intervention of federal government.
In view of the importance of research library, he requested the ministry that the idea of its shifting from Karachi to Lahore be dropped in the interest of the people of Sindh.
The secretary of culture also appointed director culture to enquire into the theft of antiques in Moenjodaro.
The enquiry officer, immediately left for Larkana, to make an on-the-spot enquiry and submit a report to the secretary culture.
SDA: The Sindh Democratic Alliance (SDA), has called for dropping the move to shift the cultural and historical treasure of Sindh to Punjab and said another such move was resisted in 1994 by the then Sindh government.
The SDA leader, Imtiaz Shaikh, pointed out that sometime back the Moenjodaro Laboratory, funded by the Italian government, was shifted to Lahore Fort, following which the Italian government reacted by immediately stopping the funding and the World Heritage Site has begun to decay at an alarming pace.
Sometime back over 40 priceless artifacts, including over 5,000 years stone seals and copper tables, had been stolen from Moenjodaro, which have, so far, not been recovered, showing what interest the Archeology department was taking in the matter and raising the suspicion that high officials had a hand in the matter.
He demanded that not only the recent order of shifting be stopped but a high level inquiry be instituted into the theft of artefacts from Moenjodaro.
PTI: The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, called for cancellation of the shifting, and said the centre had always adopted a colonial attitude towards Sindh in denying provincial autonomy, due share of revenue, water rights and now it seemed that Sindh would be denied of treasure of its cultural heritage comprising over 150,000 artefacts, antiques, precious historic books, etc.
PTI leader Mairaj Mohammad Khan said the attitude of the federal government was a reminiscent of the colonial rulers who were infamous for collecting all the artefacts, antiques and such treasures that they took from their colonies to enrich their museums in England.
He said ordering the employees of the department to shift to Lahore by May 15 or take retirement, regardless of their personal and family difficulties, was like an order issued by the then government at the time of formation of the One-Unit in 1956 which was deeply resented by the people of Sindh.
Mr Khan has urged all the writers, poets, artists, intellectuals, concerned citizens, professionals as well as political parties to join hands to resist the federal move.