BADIN: While an over three-decade-old controversy over the custodianship of the Luari Sharif shrine continued to cast a shadow on peace in Badin city and other parts of the district, the dominating group that recently managed to persuade the Auqaf department to unseal the place organised the 34th Urs of Khwaja Gul Hassan on Saturday. The rival group held its own Urs celebration ceremony at a place close to the shrine.

Proceedings of both ceremonies were held amid tension and fear of a clash but the congregations ended peacefully.

The controversy had led to the sealing of the shrine 33 years ago and violent attacks involving disciples belonging to the two rival groups have already left about a dozen people dead and several others injured.

In a surprise move, Abdul Qayyum Soomro, adviser to the chief minister on Auqaf, along with a group of disciples belonging to one group unsealed the shrine on Aug 21 and assured them of long-due repair and renovation work. The rival group expressed its resentment over the move and on Sept 2, they held demonstrations in several towns of Sindh challenging the adviser’s authority to reopen the shrine and insisting that it should also have been taken on board.

Several hundred disciples belonging to the dominating group thronged the shrine the very next day in a show of strength and their leaders announced that any attempt to further hinder the repair and renovation work at the shrine would be resisted tooth and nail. They thanked the provincial government for reopening the shrine and started preparations for the Urs.

On Saturday, the Urs celebrations were held in a peaceful manner with several thousand disciples, including women and children, taking part in day-long rituals. The Langar (Food) was distributed whole day among the people.

Meanwhile, Mir Sikandar Ali Jamali (in whose supervision the celebrations were held) and Baloch Abdur Rahman, another leader of the organising group, told the media that the property worth millions of rupees belonging to the shrine was being managed by the Auqaf department.

They were responding to the questions regarding the controversy over the shrine’s custodianship and the government’s alleged siding with the dominating group.

They said they were keenly looking for Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah’s action on his promise to get the the shrine and the adjacent mosque repaired and renovated as it had been crumbling since the 2010 floods, which had caused extensive damage to the historical structure.

They said that although Mr Soomro unsealed the shrine for an inspection keeping in view the plan for the repair and renovation work, it was sealed again and disciples were allowed to hold the Urs celebrations outside the shrine as had been in practice for 33 years.

It is pertinent to mention here that the tomb at the shrine originally belongs to Hazrat Khwaja Mohammed Zaman, a 12th century saint, but his followers have been holding the Urs of his only son, Khwaja Gul Hassan, for the past 34 years.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2015

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