Sultan Zain-ul-Aabideen popularly known as Budshah in Kashmir wouldn’t have thought in his wildest dreams that the graveyard in which he will be buried will go to dogs one day and the government will even not bother to construct a wall around it.
During the September 2014 floods destroyed the wall around Budshah tomb and since then no efforts have been made to construct the wall around the tomb.A delegation from Zainakadal area in old Srinagar city headed by one Abdul Ahad Bhat told CNS that the tomb of the Budshah is in shambles. “Irrigation and Flood Control Department were mulling to construct the collapsed wall but Archaeological Department claimed it their baby and from past one year neither the Archaeological department bothered to construct the wall around the tomb nor it allowed Irrigation and Flood Control Department to do the same.”
Ghiyas-ud-Din Zain-ul-Abidin (1418-1470) was the eighth sultan of Kashmir. He acquired a halo in popular imagination which still surrounds his name in spite of the lapse of nearly five hundred years. He was known by his subjects, and indeed still is, as Bud Shah (the Great King)
“We were expecting that the government will preserve and give a facelift to this 15th century monumental tomb but our hopes have dashed now. We are planning to pool in money to construct the wall around it ourselves,” the locals said.
Pertinently, the monumental Budshah tomb is protected by New Delhi based Archaeological Survey of India that recently shifted its office from Srinagar to Gandhinagar Jammu. The only official from ASI present in Kashmir Valley did not respond to repeated phone calls. (CNS)
