LAHORE - “The 148-year-old Government College University, the old seat of higher learning in Pakistan, is going to be ruined to make a bus terminals,” said the Old Ravian Union on Monday while making an appeal to Old Ravians; PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Secretary Nasir Mehmood Khosa they urged “Save alma mater from great destruction.”
The appeal was made by the executive committee of the Old Ravians Union while reacting to a news item that GCU historical Loggia Gardens and the only Girl’s Hostel were to be leveled to make terminals for the Rapid Transit Bus Service. Old Ravians Union Secretary Advocate Mian Muhammad Cachhar said that GCU is a great institution that produced luminaries like Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, N.M Rashid, Patras Bokhari, Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr Abdus Salam, besides hundreds of literary figures, politicians, jurists, sportsmen and scientists, so it should not be ruined for a bus terminal. The union also said that GCU campus is a historical site, the witness of two centuries, and it should be protected under the ‘historic site preservation’. He added that the terminal can be conveniently shifted to some other site including Nasir Bagh.
The union said GCU has only one girl’s hostel where around 300 female students from Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir and far-flung areas of Punjab are residing. “Should education of 300 females be compromised for a bus terminal?” the union asked the Punjab government.
Moreover, the union executive body said that all eminent Old Ravians have great love for the Loggia Gardens where they have studied and spent the best time of their lives.
The Old Ravians Union Executive Committee requested the Punjab Chief Minister to intervene in the matter. They said that they highly appreciate Shahbaz Sharif’s steps for providing modern and convenient transport service to the citizens of Lahore, but it should not be done at the cost of a historical site of Lahore. The ORU executive committee believed that Sharif brothers have done so much for their alma mater and they would not do anything which would harm it.