LAHORE, Aug 13: Bab-i-Pakistan, a national memorial envisaged in 1985 at the site of Walton refugee camp where millions of people had reached after trudging their traumatic journey, mainly from East Punjab, to their ‘dreamland’, is still in the initial stages of construction and has shrunk to 100 or so acres from the 400 mentioned in the original plan unveiled in 1991.
Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had visited the place on April 12, 1948.
So far, a prime minister and a president have separately laid the foundation stone of the memorial, said to be the brainchild of the then Punjab chief minister and a staunch Muslim League worker, the late Ghulam Haider Wyne. The idea was appreciated and approved immediately by the late president Gen Ziaul Haq when presented to him in 1985 by then Punjab governor Lt-Gen Ghulam Jilani.
Envisaged as a sleek sky-kissing geometric structure, reflected in a rectangular ornamental pool below, by architect Amjad Mukhtar, a National College of Arts graduate, the memorial comprised a mosque, library, art gallery, museum, garden, restaurants and sport facilities. The design was selected through a competition.
Following Gen Zia’s death in 1988 the project was stalled. Punjab chief minister Wyne again presented the plan to then prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Aug 1, 1991, who not only gave a nod but also laid the foundation stone of Bab-i-Pakistan after a fortnight on 44th Independence Day.
Among those who attended the ceremony were hundreds of activists of Mohajir Qaumi Movement, that was later named Muttahida Qaumi Movement, reaching Lahore through a special train.
To be completed with Rs100 million, the project was again shelved after Mr Wyne could not survive a no-confidence move in the Punjab legislature in 1993.
Meanwhile, a portion of the project site was handed over to the army and Punjab Boy Scouts Association while a slum also emerged there.
The project was revived in 1997 by the then chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, on the site, by then cut to 75 acres, after the government failed to retrieve the land.
It was stalled for the third time following the 1999 military coup.
Three years later, the army agreed to vacate 25 acres of the project site to the Punjab government but the pledge could not be materialised.
The Punjab government again revived the project and the then president, Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf, laid its ‘foundation stone’ for the second time on Aug 14, 2005.Work was resumed on the site the following year, in June 2006,and the Punjab government announced Rs300 million grant for completion of the monument by August 2009.
Judicial crisis was yet another happening that got the project pushed to the back burner for the fourth time and the placehad since been declared a `no-go’ zone for the public. At present, most of the site area is covered with bushes and weeds.
Bab-i-Pakistan Project Director Col Shabbir said that some 24 per cent work on it had been completed while the rest would be completed by March 2012.