CHARAR-E-SHARIEF, June 18: The Farooq Abdullah Government and the leaders of the Hurriyat Conference appear to be heading towards a face-off over the reconstruction of the Charar-e-Sharief, the 600-year-old shrine gutted in May 1995.

As the State Government and the 33-party Hurriyat Conference want to make political capital out of the issue, both have staked their claim to rebuild the shrine.

Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah says he is in the process of finalising a list of renowned architects from New Delhi and Mumbai, who would together make a model for the new structure. While the Charar-e-Sharief will be built in the same Central Asian style, more cement and marble will be used to protect it from fire, he adds.

The Chief Minister, who is the former Chairman and, at present, the Chief Patron of the Auquaf Trust says he will ensure that the Hurriyat leaders surrender the funds they collected ostensibly for rebuilding Charar-e-Sharief. ``The Hurriyat leaders collected between Rs 60-100 crore in the name of the shrine and I am determined to get it back,'' he says.

``They have used up all this money for their own purposes and if need be, I will sell their properties and houses.''

Leaders of the Hurriyat Conference scoff at the allegations. They say that Farooq Abdullah or the State Government have nothing to do with the reconstruction. The Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, Umar Farooq says that they collected Rs 1.2 crore for Charar-e-Sharief and all that money was distributed to people whose houses had been gutted in the May 1995 inferno. He, however, adds that they may start another fund collection for the Charar-e-Sharief.

In fact, the reconstruction of the mausoleum of Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani, located 30 kilometers from Srinagar in Badgam district, has already begun. A model of the proposed shrine is kept in a glass case inside a temporarily-constructed structure. Present at the site are representatives of the Auquaf Trust - which maintains about 60 religious shrines in the state. They claim that funds for rebuilding the Charar-e-Sharief were coming exclusively from their corpus.

The on-going construction at the site, says Hurriyat's Umar Farooq, is being done with their blessings and the model kept inside the temporary structure was carried in a procession led by Hurriyat leaders. ``The State Government has no links with the new building. If Farooq Abdullah has evidence that we collected so much money in the name of the Charar-e-Sharief, let him show us the evidence. Our accounts are clear,'' he says.

As the politicians continue their claims and counter-claims, the residents of Charar-e-Sharief and the members of the Aukauf Trust seem to be hedging their bets. Abdul Rashid, General Secretary of the Trust, says they are equidistant from the Government as well as the Hurriyat and are independently rebuilding the shrine. He says they have only taken ``moral'' help from the Hurriyat and would not take any monetary assistance from them.

He says the State Government is involved only in redeveloping the Charar-e-Sharief township. About 1,500 houses were charred along with the mausoleum and the adjoining Jamia mosque. While the Government maintains it was the militants led by Mast Gul who caused the destruction, the displaced residents still believe it was the jawans who did it.

Two years after the incident, the victims of the fire are far from satisfied with the rehabilitation package offered by the Government. The Farooq Government has an ambitious Rs 20-crore plan of redesigning the township and has already allotted land to the displaced persons in the Alamdar satellite township, three kilometres from the shrine. But, this, the residents feel has only added to their misery since their earnings from putting up and feeding pilgrims in their homes have come down drastically.

Abdul Rahi, whose shop was burnt, says a majority of the residents feel the Hurriyat leaders had siphoned off funds, but they were now waiting and watching the developments.

``We were told the shrine will be reconstructed in one years time but nothing has been done, '' he says. ``As far as the reconstruction is concerned, the people of Charer-e-Sharief will support whoever is willing to spend the maximum money on the shrine.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.