Heritage

Soz urges ASI to declare remains of Sheikh Abdullah’s Soura residence as Heritage Site

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Srinagar: Professor Saifuddin Soz, Former Union Minister has said that the dilapidated house of Sheikh Abdullah at Soura should be converted into a heritage site.

“Sensitized by journalist Mukeet Akmali’s story in 2018 regarding dilapidated condition of the house at Soura… I decided to visit Soura on April 30, 2019. When I arrived there, what I saw was shocking… The neighbhours lamented that the house of historic importance remained neglected for years before it fell to the ground last year.”

“There was only one option for a person like me, to urge the Archaeological Survey of India to declare the premises as a Heritage site,” Soz said in a press statement.

Apart from Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Gaffar Khan, Abdul Samad Khan Uchakzai, Maulana Azad and the luminaries from the other side such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Mian Amiruddin, Mohammad Din Taseer, Sheikh Sadiq Hassan and others having visited this house.

“It was here that Pakistan’s emissary Sheikh Sadiq Hassan had met Sheikh Saheb and Gulam Ahmad Ashai to discuss Kashmir’s future,” he said.

“It was a great privilege in my own life to have met Late Sheikh Saheb near the Chinar Tree alongwith Sahibzada Hassan Shah, (the then Principal M.A.M College, Jammu) and Prof. G.N. Sidiqi in 1966. The first thing I did on my return was to take up the issue with the Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, Mrs. Usha Sharma to urge her to declare the premises as a Heritage site.”

 

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