Islamabad High Court (IHC) has issued a notification to Capital Development Authority (CDA) regarding the construction of a Hindu temple in the federal capital.
IHC’s Justice Amir Farooq heard the petition of lawyer Chaudhry Tanveer Akhtar who said the land allotted for the construction of the Hindu temple in Sector H-9 of Islamabad should be withdrawn along with the funds allocated for the project.
The counsel said a temple already exists in Saidpur Village which should be renovated by the government. He said the land given for temple construction is a violation of Islamabad’s master plan.
The petitioner added that the master plan of Islamabad should be implemented and a restraining order should be issued against the construction of the temple.
He continued that in Sector H-9, the government did not announce funds for a mosque but released funds for the construction of the temple.
Justice Farooq remarked that the CDA should state whether the temple in H-9 was part of the master plan of Islamabad or not.
However, the IHC bench also observed that the minorities had full rights and the government also had to take care of them.
The petitioner, Chaudhary Tanveer Akhtar, filed the petition, and cited principal secretary to the prime minister, federal minister for religious affairs, federal minister for interior, chairman CDA, and chairman CDA board as respondents.
Pritam Das Rathi, a retired civil servant living in Islamabad said some 3,000 Hindus—working in health department (hospitals), CDA, non-government organizations (NGOs), federal secretariat and other private departments—were living in Islamabad and its periphery but there was no temple or cremation place for them.
The temple in Saidpur village is a national heritage site and tourist place. The temple there is no longer used for prayer but it is only a tourism point, he said.
“Wherever Hindus live, they need a temple to pray, a cremation place to perform rituals of their dead. Unfortunately, in Islamabad we do not have any such place and it was our consistent and persistent demand from successive governments for construction of a temple in the federal capital which is an international city,” said Pritam Das.
The proposed temple has been the result of continuous efforts of the Hindu community which first took up the matter with National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) and drew its attention to the site of a temple in Islamabad’s Master Plan.When asked if there was a site allocated for the Hindu temple in Sector H-9 in the Master Plan of Islamabad, he said of course or else how CDA would have approved it.
