Press club moves new premises
PESHAWAR- City’s journalist community, which had a club in the premises of the Peshawar Museum here for over 25 years, moved to a new building.
NWFP Governor Lt Gen Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah was the chief guest on the occasion but he did not attend the ceremony to inaugurate the new Peshawar Press Club building due to political reasons.
The construction of the new building started in the tenure of a former chief minister, Sardar Mehtab Ahmad Khan, who has been sentenced for 14 years of imprisonment by an accountability court.
The old press club building is housed in the precinct of the Peshawar Museum. Earlier, the journalist community had aspired to stay there due to its central location, but the museum management and their Japanese donor agencies opposed it.
Then, the provincial government leased out a new site on the same road for the press club. The old building was inaugurated by the then PPP provincial chief, Hayat Mohammad Khan Sherpao, and was partly constructed during the tenure of a late governor Lt. Gen Fazal Haq.
The Peshawar Museum had been shifted to its present premises, Victoria Memorial Hall, in 1906. The world known archeologists served as its directors.
It is ‘the only museum which had a great collection of arte-facts of Gandhara period. But, later, it was handed over to the district management group, which kept it as a junk shop rather than a treasure of a civilization.
Now, some officials of the directorate of the archaeology and museums want to move in the old press club building to convert it into their offices. Some others want to turn it into a cafe.
The museum management wants to establish a guesthouse a bookshop and embroidery centre, reflecting the images of the Gandhara period, tribal life and local traditions.
Professor Fidaullah Sehrai, a former director of the museum, pro-posed that a lecture hall and gift centre should be established in the vacant building.
The old premises should be used for the promotion of the local culture and not for the business purposes, he added
Source: Dawn
Date:7/26/2001
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