Home > Pakistan News & Library > Thieves steal ‘sign of gallantry’
GUJRAT: The memorial column built to pay tribute to the three recipients of Nishan-i-Haider from Gujrat, the highest military award for gallantry, has become a victim of sheer neglect of the district government because replicas of award have been missing since long.
The Kutchery Chowk, which was renamed as Nishan-i-Haider Chowk after the construction of a memorial column some three years back, is a busy square at the heart of the city surrounded by district courts, the DPO office and district government complex.
The brass replicas were installed on three sides of the lectern inscribed with the names of war heroes -- Maj Aziz Bhatti Shaheed, Maj Akram Shaheed and Maj Shabbir Sharif Shaheed.
Maj Bhatti of Ladian village embraced martyrdom in the 1965 war and Maj Akram of Dingah, Kharian tehsil, and Maj Sharif of Kunjah town in the 1971 war.
Maj Shabbir Sharif is the only officer of the Pakistan army who had received both Sitara-i-Jurat and Nishan-i-Haider in 1965 and 1971 wars, respectively.
Plenty in numbers, drug addicts found brass replicas an easy prey and stole these a long time back, but the local district government felt no remorse and it never took any pain to reinstall them.
The lectern’s pedestal has rather become an attractive place for small advertisers who paste posters there while the recent whitewash has defaced whatever ‘beauty’ the memorial was holding after the stolen replicas.
Tehsil municipal officer Ilyas Gill said the tehsil machinery was only responsible for the cleanliness of the memorial column while its maintenance was the responsibility of the district government.
'The district government had constructed the memorial as part of the expansion work and the TMA had no funds to carry out its maintenance or repair,' he said.
District information officer Naeem Malik said the DDO (revenue) had written a letter to the police station concerned for the registration of a case.
He said the DCO, also in his separate letter addressed to the Gujrat DPO on Oct 10, asked for the registration of a case and recovery of brass replicas of the Nishan-i-Haider |
