RAWALPINDI: Machinery is being moved to the site next week to rebuild the burnt down Taleemul Quran madressah-mosque-market complex in the thriving Raja Bazaar, but the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) says it will be illegal to start the work.

`Since the ETPB has not issued the `No Objection Certificate` for this work, it will be illegal if the work is started without our approval,` stated ETPB Rawalpindi region Administrator Wahab Gul while talking to Dawn.

Although the Punjab government is behind the Rs34 million re-construction plan, the pricyland on which the complex stood belonged to the ETPB. It leased out the land for the mosque-madressah in the early 1980s.

Rioters had burnt down the complex, having more than 100 shops, during the sectarian violence that rocked the garrison city last November.

`We had communicated our objections to the plan quite early to the local administration and the madressah clerics,` the official said. `The Commissioner and the District Coordination Officer are aware of them.

He said the ETPB chairman will directly deal with the NoC issue and starting the construction work before that will be illegal.

DCO Sajid Zafar Dall agreed that the controversy over the land use had been pending with the federal government since 1993, but said it was a matter between the ETPB and a federal secretary.

`There is not any legal bar, or any kind of stay in that case,` theDCO said, adding the FWO would start the rebuilding work on February 17, as agreed by the affected traders of the market and the Taleemul Quran clerics.

Funds have already arrived from the Punjab government for the job, he added.

According to the ETPB sources, the controversial transfer of the evacuee land to the Taleemul Quran seminary some 35 years ago is still pending with a federal secretary for a decision.

Then two residential and four commercial shops burnt along with the complex were not part of the madressah-mosque-market but have been included in the reconstruction plan by clerics and the traders of the Madina Market.

Tenants of the two commercial shops on Hamilton Road, measuring 2.16 marlas allowed the clerics of Taleemul Quran to transfer the lease in their name to provide a rear access to the seminary andmosque in new building.

`This will violate the evacuee property rules as the passage would be on the land of a Hindu temple. Rules say that the land cannot be used for purposes other than the Hindu religion,` said an official of ETPB requesting anonymity.

Taleemul Quran administration has acquired the land of two shops as the new lessee, paying Rs3,401 per month to ETPB as rent.

Two ETPB tenants Mohammad Shabbir and Janaat Bibi, who had residential house measuring 9.6 marlas adjacent to the mosque, claimed to Dawn that they transferred the lease `under pressure from some ETPB officials and seminary clerics`.

`We have been living here since 1947. We lost our houses to arsonists during the sectarian violence.

Instead reconstructing our houses, they made us transfer the lease in the name of the seminary,` they said.