Pak minority shrine body bars Peshawar admin from taking control of Panj Tirath

Pakistan's Evacuee Property Trust Board (EPTB), which manages the shrines of Hindus and Sikhs, has stopped the district administration of Peshawar from taking control of temples in Panj Tirath, a Hindu religious site which has been declared as the national heritage.

The EPTB said that no one can take control of the temples in Panj Tirath unless two cases pending in the Peshawar High Court are decided.

EPTB Deputy Director Peshawar in an official communique to the Deputy Commissioner said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Archaeological Department has declared temples in Panj Tirath as the national heritage, but the EPTB has not been informed in writing till date about it.

Temples are property of the EPTB and declaring the temples as the national heritage without taking the EPTB into confidence is beyond any logic, it said.

"The EPTB is a federal department which has its own rules and regulations and no provincial government can prove that its law has an edge over the federal government laws. Therefore, the Peshawar District Administration should avoid taking control of the temples in Panj Tirath or its handing over to the archaeological department," it said.

In a related development, the Hindu Rajput Society Peshawar in a letter addressed to the President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Chairman National Assembly Committee on Minorities has sought control of the Panj Tirath, stating that Rajputs have no temple for worship while other Hindus have their shrines in Peshawar.

The temples in Panj Tirath should be allocated to the Rajput Hindus so that they could worship there instead of worshipping in homes, the Hindu Rajput Society said in the letter.