QUETTA: Senator Danesh Kumar of the ruling Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) has assailed the federal government for rejecting all schemes he had suggested for development of historical Hinglaj Mata Temple located in Lasbela district. The temple is visited by thousands of devotees every year from across the world.

Speaking to reporters here on Sunday, he said that in view of the religious tourism importance of Hinglaj Mata Temple, he submitted over a dozen development schemes for providing facilities to devotees who visited the temple every year but all the schemes and suggestions were outright rejected by the federal government. “Not a single penny was allocated by Islamabad for development of this important religious place,” Senator Kumar said, who was elected senator on a reserved seat for minorities in the Senate from Balochistan.

Talking about the importance of Hinglaj Mata Temple in Hindu religion, he said that it was one of four important religious temples in the world for Hindu devotees. Every year over one million Hindu devotees and other people visit this holy place. Indian leader Jaswant Singh, who has written a book on Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, also visited this temple as the sitting foreign minister of India.

Senator Kumar, however, appreciated the Balochistan government for allocating Rs300 million for development Hinglaj Mata temple. He said that this huge amount would be spent on providing maximum facilities to visitors and construction of roads and other development work. He said the temple was ignored in the past, but the present provincial government had spent more than Rs1 billion on development of the temple and promoting tourism in the area.

He said it was encouraging that local Muslim youths protected this historical temple.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2021