Stolen relics: Hearing of holy slippers case today

LAHORE: An additional district and sessions judge fixed January 29 for the hearing of a petition seeking the recovery of the slippers attributed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) stolen from Badshahi Masjid. The petition followed a police report stating that no suspects had been identified since the theft in 2002. The court had sought comments from Tibbi City police on a petition filed by Pir SA Jafri asking the court for a direction to police to submit interim challan of the suspects. The petitioner said he had gone barefoot and worn black clothes since 2002, to protest the authorities’ failure to arrest the thieves and recover the holy relic. Police said they had investigated 23 employees of the Badshahi Masjid and found Hafeez-ur-Rehman (guard) and Jan Muhammad (attendant) to be negligent. They said a newspaper report, saying that some of the relics were taken to Brunei in connivance with the Auqaf department but not brought back, had turned out false. Some employees at the mosque had told police that certain former officials were responsible for the theft. An inquiry established that this too was false and the result of disagreements between current and former management. The police report stated that around 3,000 tourists visited the Badshahi Masjid every month. After questioning many regular visitors they still had not found any leads. On direction of the Punjab chief minister, the case was assigned to a special inspection team, which also did not lead to any suspects. More than 10 teams, consisting of SPs, SSPs and DSPs, had been constituted. Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2014.