SHC seeks report on protection of Syed Hashmi Reference Library

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed the provincial culture secretary to submit a report with regard to the protection of Syed Hashmi Reference Library, which is said to be coming in the way of the Malir Expressway project.

The direction came on a petition of Mohammad Imran Kalmati and others who sought the protection of decades-old library in the Malir area on the Balochi language and literature. It has been named after Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi, Baloch poet and linguist credited for compiling the first ever dictionary of Baloch language.

The petitioners submitted that libraries were a crucial form of social infrastructure in any city and they should be protected and preserved. They submitted that the provincial government had marked several houses and places, including Syed Hashmi Reference Library, which had almost 25,000 books, for demolition for the purpose of constructing the Malir Expressway.

They submitted that there should be transparency in the expressway plan. They added that considering the significance of the library as a space of learning for students and as a culture centre, the city administration should ensure the library’s existence.

The petitioners informed the court that 15 scholars had earned their PhD degrees using the library resources, and 65 books had also been published by the library. They submitted that the city administration had arbitrarily conceived a new plan for an interchange in front of the library with the intention to keep the library building intact but such plan would massively debilitate access to the library for students and researchers and effectively cut off routes for residents of the area.

The high court was requested to restrain the government authorities from demolishing the library and blocking the routes of library for the people. A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar observed that the cultural department director had been directed to personally visit the library and submit a report on its status. The bench observed that no report had been filed by the culture department and directed the culture secretary to submit a compliance report on the next hearing.