Muzaffarabad, November 27
At the foot of the Chanari Rest House on the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar road is the skeleton of a small shop that belonged to a Sikh.
As can be seen from the photograph, all that remains of the shop is the door and two pieces of wood that once supported the roof. Amazingly, the door has remained locked all these years with nobody ever making an attempt to open it.
The shop has now become part of the folklore in the area. As the gripping story goes, the Sikh businessman fled from the area in the wake of the Partition. But before leaving Chanari, he told his neighbour to keep an eye on the shop so that he could reoccupy it once things settled down in both countries.
Fiftyseven years have passed since the shopkeeper left the area. Nobody knew what happened to him. In any case, he could not have returned because among all the areas of Pakistan, “Azad Kashmir” was the most inaccessible to the Indians.
However, the good neighbour saw to it that nobody took possession of the shop. But he too could not save it from the elements which have brought it to its present condition.
The Chanari Rest House has a chequered history. Among the dignitaries who stayed in this rest house are the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Rest House now belongs to the Public Works Department of the “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” government.
