Under-reconstruction, The Jain Mandir in Lahore, is preparing to reopen

 The city’s historic Jain Mandir, which is named after the temple, is getting a much-needed makeover and renovation.

Lahore has only a few Jain temples. They were damaged in 1992, along with many other temples in the city, just a few days after a group of Hindu right-wingers destroyed the 16th century Babri Mosque in India. People built this mosque during the reign of the first Mughal emperor. Babur was in charge when he did this.

Temple canopies were the only thing that stayed from when the temple was built. Over the next two decades, its ruins were left to rot. In 2016, it was put behind a boundary wall and the rest of the site was given to the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT).

One day before the 19th anniversary of the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 2021, then-chief justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed said that both temples in Neela Gumbad and Babri Mosque should be rebuilt right away.

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Iqbal Qaiser, a Punjabi author who wrote a book called Ujray Daran De Darshan (A Peek into the Deserted Doors) about the forgotten Jain heritage in Pakistan, said the Jain Mandir near Anarkali was built by a woman with her own money in 1940.

After the Partition, it stayed open until 1992, when it was destroyed by fire.

Then, Mr. Qaiser told him about two other major Jain temples in Lahore. One of them was in the city of Bhabra. Emperor Akbar built it in Lahore’s Bhati Gate, which has narrow streets. It was rebuilt by the British during their time in the country. One day in 1940, it was torn down and the place where the Jain Hall is now stands instead.

The Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) started rebuilding the temple, which is right next to a vast OLMT station, just a few weeks after the Supreme Court told them to. They now expect to finish it in just over a month. If you pass by the temple that is still being built, you can see scaffoldings on top of its cone-shaped structure with workers working on it.

Over 70% of the work on the Jain Mandir’s rehabilitation has been done, so it will take about a month or so to finish it. This is because the money for the project, which is worth about $5 million, has already been spent.

A crane lifted the surviving parts of the temple and put them on a three- to the four-foot-high platform.

The official said that a sewer line had been put in, CCTV cameras had been set up, new gates had been put in, walls had been plastered, the landscaping had been done, pigeon holes had been repaired, and the finishing was still going on.

He said that it was being made sure that the temple’s design stayed in line with the architecture of the Jain religion. Dr Aamer Ahmed, the chairman of the ETPB, and Rana Shahid, the secretary of the Shrines, are personally in charge of the rehabilitation, Mr. Abbas said.

Under-reconstruction, The Jain Mandir in Lahore, is preparing to reopen.

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