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LAHORE, Jun 11 (APP):Provincial Minister for Minority Affairs Ramesh Singh Arora on Tuesday said that everyone had the right to a graveyard, it should not be reserved at the level of specific area.
While presiding over the meeting in committee room of the department, he said letters would be written to the deputy commissioners (DCs) of all districts to indicate the places of graveyards for minorities at the UC level.
In the meeting, MPAs Ijaz Alam Augustine, Emmanuel Aether Johnson, Shakila Javed Aether, Baba Philbos Christopher, Secretary HR & MA Bahadur Ali Qazi, AS of HR Rizwana Naveed, DS Secretary Minorities Ayesha Yasin, DS Local Government, ADCR, deputy secretary Colonies from BOR and other concerned persons participated.
In the meeting, there was a detailed discussion about the availability of graveyards for minorities and the cemeteries of Shehr-e-Khomoshan Authority.
MPA Ijaz Alam Augustine raised the issue that there was no Christian cemetery from Chungi Amarsadhu to Gujjumta while Yohanabad had the largest Christian population. Similarly, land should be reserved for the minorities in the completed cemeteries of the city of Khamoshan Authority, while there were focal persons up to the UC level who could identify the lands.
MPA Baba Philbos said that there was a big issue of Christian cemetery in Gujranwala too.
MPA Sonia Asher said that there was a large number of Christian communities living in Bihar Colony in Lahore and also in Green Town but they were facing many problems due to lack of cemetery space.
Provincial Minister for Minority Affairs Ramesh Singh Arora assured the participants that the process of identifying the cemetery lands for the minorities would be started from today while the covering walls of the cemeteries and other arrangements were being made by the department.
He appointed Additional Secretary Human Rights Rizwana Naveed as the focal person on behalf of the department and urged the MPAs to contact the focal person on any issue regarding cemeteries.
Mandatory places would be identified for Christian, Hindu and Sikh communities, he added and said soon there would be a follow-up meeting in this regard so that the progress on the issues could be properly reviewed, he concluded.