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Mystery coffers on Lahore roads
AHSAN RAZA
Photo by Dawn.
Updated 2014-04-02 08:31:11
LAHORE: They have been standing out for quite some time at bus stands, on corners and in parking lots across the Lahore city: green metal boxes inviting the people to donate cash in the name of ‘sadqa’, an Islamic term meaning voluntary charity.
The same size, shape and colour, these receptacles are fixed to metallic four-legged pedestal stands which are firmly attached to floor or chained with poles. The locked boxes have a tiny hole in the top to drop the money.
Who has installed these boxes and where does the collection go?
“No one knows,” said a police constable, who offered his first name Rehman, manning the entrance to the Metro Bus Station at Kalma Chowk. At the entrance stands the donation box since the time the station opened last year.
“They might be operated by the mosque management,” said Luqman, a mechanic at a nearby shop, pointing towards a nearby street. The management of the Jamia Farooqia, located in the adjacent street, denied their link with the box.
“We’ve placed a couple of donation boxes inside the mosque,” said Muhammad Bilal, a tutor at the mosque.
‘Sadqa har bala ko taal deta hi (Sadqa eases all sorts of hardships)’ is written on the boxes. It also offers a simple arithmetic for each penny dropped into the box: for each penny spent on ‘sadqa’, you will be rewarded 10 times in life and 70 times in the hereafter.
The text, however, seems to have least effect on the hurried passersby.
In a 30-minute stay at the stop, the Dawn reporter saw a woman and a teenaged boy dropping coins into the box. The woman refused to comment while the boy, Muhammad Hasan, said he had seen a motorcycle crash in the morning at Chungi Amar Sidhu so he deemed it appropriate to donate ‘sadqa’ to be saved from such accidents.
Do you know where this money will go?
“I don’t know and I’m not much bothered about it; the fact is I’ve offered charity and may the Almighty Allah accept it and save me from hardships,” said the graduating student before running to catch a bus.
Shopkeepers at Liberty, New Campus Bridge, Guru Mangat Road, Firdaus Market and nearby mosques where such boxes are installed, showed their ignorance about those running the charity collection chain.
Muhammad Latif, an ice seller at the Gulberg Main Market, however, offered a scant clue about the operators. “Many months ago, I saw two motorcyclists collect money from the box at pre-dawn hours,” he told Dawn. He said the duo had told him that they spent the money on an under-construction mosque at Ichhra.
Latif, who at least sits 12 hours a day by the box, guesses the amount put into the box a month is not less than Rs5,000. He himself donates Rs10 whenever he earns a reasonable profit.
The Charitable Funds (Regulation of Collections) Act, 1953) bars such a charity collection unless it is sanctioned by the government and is audited properly.
Ravi Town Tehsil Municipal Officer Ahmad Kamal also called such boxes illegal and said such irritants were bound to be removed in anti-encroachment operations.
AHSAN RAZA
Photo by Dawn.
Updated 2014-04-02 08:31:11
LAHORE: They have been standing out for quite some time at bus stands, on corners and in parking lots across the Lahore city: green metal boxes inviting the people to donate cash in the name of ‘sadqa’, an Islamic term meaning voluntary charity.
The same size, shape and colour, these receptacles are fixed to metallic four-legged pedestal stands which are firmly attached to floor or chained with poles. The locked boxes have a tiny hole in the top to drop the money.
Who has installed these boxes and where does the collection go?
“No one knows,” said a police constable, who offered his first name Rehman, manning the entrance to the Metro Bus Station at Kalma Chowk. At the entrance stands the donation box since the time the station opened last year.
“They might be operated by the mosque management,” said Luqman, a mechanic at a nearby shop, pointing towards a nearby street. The management of the Jamia Farooqia, located in the adjacent street, denied their link with the box.
“We’ve placed a couple of donation boxes inside the mosque,” said Muhammad Bilal, a tutor at the mosque.
‘Sadqa har bala ko taal deta hi (Sadqa eases all sorts of hardships)’ is written on the boxes. It also offers a simple arithmetic for each penny dropped into the box: for each penny spent on ‘sadqa’, you will be rewarded 10 times in life and 70 times in the hereafter.
The text, however, seems to have least effect on the hurried passersby.
In a 30-minute stay at the stop, the Dawn reporter saw a woman and a teenaged boy dropping coins into the box. The woman refused to comment while the boy, Muhammad Hasan, said he had seen a motorcycle crash in the morning at Chungi Amar Sidhu so he deemed it appropriate to donate ‘sadqa’ to be saved from such accidents.
Do you know where this money will go?
“I don’t know and I’m not much bothered about it; the fact is I’ve offered charity and may the Almighty Allah accept it and save me from hardships,” said the graduating student before running to catch a bus.
Shopkeepers at Liberty, New Campus Bridge, Guru Mangat Road, Firdaus Market and nearby mosques where such boxes are installed, showed their ignorance about those running the charity collection chain.
Muhammad Latif, an ice seller at the Gulberg Main Market, however, offered a scant clue about the operators. “Many months ago, I saw two motorcyclists collect money from the box at pre-dawn hours,” he told Dawn. He said the duo had told him that they spent the money on an under-construction mosque at Ichhra.
Latif, who at least sits 12 hours a day by the box, guesses the amount put into the box a month is not less than Rs5,000. He himself donates Rs10 whenever he earns a reasonable profit.
The Charitable Funds (Regulation of Collections) Act, 1953) bars such a charity collection unless it is sanctioned by the government and is audited properly.
Ravi Town Tehsil Municipal Officer Ahmad Kamal also called such boxes illegal and said such irritants were bound to be removed in anti-encroachment operations.
