KARACHI, Aug 20: The old blocks of the Church Mission Society (CMS) School, where Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah received his early education, wears a pathetic look.

The beautiful stone structure of the old blocks has been left to rot, and it seems that a majority of the class rooms in these old blocks are no more being used for educational purposes.

Broken furniture has been piled up in many of the rooms that once probably served as the class rooms of the school, that is located around a kilometre away from the Wazir Mansion - the Quaid-i-Azam's birthplace.

The once beautiful bamboo roof of the verandahs of the old blocks was breaking down, and at places it had caved in, showing a lack of concern on part of guardians of this historic building for the educational institution associated with the founder of the country.

A number of doors, windows and ventilators had either fallen down or had been removed, and desks and other furniture had been left in a bad shape in some of the rooms in the old blocks, where stray animals were roaming around freely and some of the rooms were giving stench of animal excrete.

Probably, no efforts were being made to preserve the old building blocks, and these structures had probably been left to crumble down with time, so that, probably, new structures could be made on the precious land.

While a few new blocks had been constructed in the school, the construction of another new block had been stopped half way owing to some legal dispute. A member of the school staff said that sometime back there was an idea that the portion of the building where the Quaid had studied would be renovated and preserved and the building would be declared a national monument.

But it just remained an idea and the building had been left to crumble, he added. A senior member of the teaching staff, on condition of anonymity, alleged that a senior member of one of a political party, that ruled the country at that time, took away the school's admission register in which the name of the Quaid was mentioned.

The register, which was of prime importance, had never been returned and that the politician was still keeping it with him, he claimed, demanding that the register, a national asset, should be recovered from the politician and returned to the CMS School, so that it could be saved for the posterity.

The CMS Church was established after the first Protestant missionary, Dr Wilson, came to the city in 1850. Soon afterwards, the school was established by Henry Preedy - the first collector of Karachi. The school is located opposite the church, also known as the Christ Church, across the Lawrence Road, now renamed as Nishtar Road.