Amidst concerns expressed by the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership over reports of demolition of Lahore's lone temple, Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq has invited saffron party leader L K Advani to visit the city to verify official claims that the shrine was not razed.
Haq, son of former military ruler Zia-ul-Haq, who visited the Krishna temple in Lahore for the second time in the past few weeks told reporters that the temple had neither been demolished nor had its land been occupied.
"Advani should visit Lahore and see for himself that it was intact and the religious affairs ministry had spent Rs one million on its renovation," he said, adding that leaders should act responsibly and refrain from issuing 'baseless allegations.'
"I will receive Advani at Wagah and he will be my guest during his stay in Lahore," he was quoted as saying by Daily Times. Haq was in the city to hand over a newly-built Sikh crematorium at Babu Sabu near Bund Road to Sikh leaders and to lay the foundation stone of a Hindu crematorium.
Asking Hindu nationalist leaders to stop 'spreading propaganda' about Hindu temples being destroyed in Pakistan, he said, "Such allegations could impede the Indo-Pak peace process."
Accusing the nationalist leadership of making false allegations, he said they should help improve relations with Pakistan. Later, Haq took Hindu and Sikh leaders and reporters to the Krishna temple and met the head priest there, the newspaper reported.
Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mushtaq Victor, who visited the temple site along with Haq, said that another building where a temple was reported to have existed, had been demolished to make place for a commercial plaza. "The building, which had shops on the ground floor and one hall on the first floor, might have been a temple decades ago, but was not one anymore and there were no signs of any Hindu relics or priests."
The building was being used as a residential place for many decades, he said while distributing photocopies of the tenancy documents among reporters. Hindu Members of National Assembly Kirshan Bheel and Devdas and Members of Provincial Assembly Rajveer Singh, Ishwar Lal, Om Prakash, and Ram Narain Malkani said the controversy was apparently engineered to create misunderstanding between Hindus and Muslims, the report said.
Pakistani officials have been denying the demolition of Krishna temple after a newspaper carried a report that it was razed. On June 16, the Lahore High Court stayed the construction of a commercial building at the site of the temple following a petition from Om Prakash Narayan, Secretary General of Pakistan's Minorities Welfare Council, and sought a directive from the court for its reconstruction.
In response to the petition, Justice Muhammad Akhtar Shabbir on Tuesday directed officials to stop the construction of a multi-storey building purportedly being built at the site of the Krishna temple and sought a report from state-run Evacuee Trust Property Board.