ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan will give the final approval on the construction of a Hindu temple complex in Islamabad, officials said on Saturday, a day after the capital development authority (CDA) stopped the construction of a boundary wall on the temple’s site citing legal reasons.
The temple complex has been a long-standing demand by the minority Hindu community in the absence of a crematorium and other religious, cultural facilities in the capital.
“Our summary for approval of the construction plan and 100 million rupee funds for the purpose is pending with the prime minister for approval,” Lal Chand Malhi, Parliamentary Secretary on Human Rights who is spearheading the Hindu temple’s construction, told Arab News.
He added the Hindu community would fund the construction of the temple themselves if the prime minister failed to approve their grant.
The plan for Islamabad’s temple complex was originally approved in 2017 under former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government and the CDA had allotted the land for the temple to Islamabad’s Hindu community on the direction of the National Commission for Human Rights. Construction was delayed until this year due to administrative issues.
On Saturday, the CDA said construction of the temple’s boundary wall had begun without necessary approvals from the authority.
“The Hindu community had started the construction without getting the building plan approved from the civic agency,” CDA spokesperson Mazhar Hussain told Arab News.
“The community has also yet to obtain legal possession of the plot.”
However, documents shared by the parliamentary secretary for human rights and seen by Arab News show legal formalities concerning the CDA were complete when the boundary wall construction began last week.
“The CDA is acting arbitrarily against the construction of our worship place, and we have already taken up this issue with the Ministry of Religious Affairs and other relevant authorities,” Malhi said.
Controversy broke out following the groundbreaking of the complex last week, when different Islamic groups and seminaries in Pakistan strongly objected to the government’s decision to allow the temple’s construction in the capital.
But the CDA upheld on Saturday it was not under any pressure from religious clerics and would allow construction to go forward once all legal formalities were fulfilled.
Earlier today, in a video widely shared on social media, a young man was recorded knocking down the temple’s boundary wall at the building site.
The video has been shared and liked over a thousand times on Twitter, and has been slammed by human rights activists.
A leading Pakistani religious seminary, Jamia Ashrafia, issued a fatwa last week slamming the construction of the Hindu temple complex in the capital.
“According to Sharia laws, it is not permitted for non-Muslims to build their new worship places or rebuild those which have no longer been in use. This is a sin in an Islamic state,” the seminary said.
After construction work was blocked on Saturday, the Ministry of Religious Affairs said it had forwarded the summary for the approval of the temple’s building plans and release of funds to Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“The prime minister will take the decision regarding construction of the temple in Islamabad,” Imran Siddiqui, a spokesman for the religion ministry told Arab News.
He said the government was committed to protecting the religious and social rights of minorities and added it was a “basic responsibility of the state.”
Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, patron-in-chief for the Pakistan Hindu Council said that out of a total 1,288 Hindu temples registered with the Evacuee Trust Property Board, only 31 were functional in the country.
“I would say that we should first try to rehabilitate the existing temples instead of constructing new ones,” Vankwani told Arab News.
“Any worship place that creates controversy should be abandoned,” he said.
The government announced last year it was hoping to restore hundreds of Hindu temples across the country to showcase the heritage of minorities, particularly Hindus and Sikhs.
Last November, in a move hailed by the international community, the Pakistani government inaugurated the Kartarpur Corridor leading to one of the holiest sites in the Sikh religion.
Pakistan is home to about eight million Hindus, according to the country’s Hindu Council-- estimates based on 1998 census figures. An estimated 3,000 Hindus live in Islamabad.
